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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25060027">Source Decay</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueLgihtening/pseuds/BlueLgihtening'>BlueLgihtening</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fallout 4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Slow Burn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:08:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>41,883</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25060027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueLgihtening/pseuds/BlueLgihtening</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Carrying a half-mauled woman to Doctor Sun wasn't Piper's idea of a relaxing evening at home, but when had anything in her life ever gone to plan?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Sole Survivor/Piper Wright</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>92</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>169</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Piper stood in front of the massive gate of Diamond City, her face pinched in frustration, “Seriously?” She muttered under her breath, rubbing her temples with her hands as she paced back and forth in front of the gate, “What the hell!”</p><p> </p><p>She marched over to the intercom, pressing the button repeatedly until she heard the voice of a guard come through the speaker, “Stop buzzing in! I can’t ask you anything!”</p><p> </p><p>She tried to calm her anger when she heard the familiar voice, and put on a sickly sweet tone that even made her cringe, “Hey Danny. It’s me, Piper. Can you <em> please </em>open the gate?”</p><p> </p><p>There was a long pause, long enough to make Piper want to press the buzzer again, if just to remind Danny she was standing out in the open still. But before she could, the intercom came back to life “Sorry Piper, I can’t do that.”</p><p> </p><p>The anger came back twofold, “What do you mean you can’t do that? The button’s right there, Danny!” </p><p> </p><p>“I don’t have permission, Piper.”</p><p> </p><p>Her face was red, she almost wanted to punch him, if she could get through the gate, “Come on, I’m standing out here in the open!” </p><p> </p><p>“I'm sorry, but Mayor McDonough's really steamed, Piper. Sayin' that article you wrote was all lies. The whole city's in a tizzy.”</p><p> </p><p>“Agh,” She was definitely going to punch him the moment she found her way past the gate, but for now she was relegated to yelling at the intercom, “You open this gate right now, Danny Sullivan! I live here. You can't just lock me out!”</p><p> </p><p>The intercom was silent.</p><p> </p><p>She pressed the buzzer, “Damn it, Danny, open up!”</p><p> </p><p>She waited a few seconds before pressing the buzzer again, “I know you're listening, Danny! Open the gate!”</p><p> </p><p>There was no response. She stormed off with a huff, pacing around the yard in front of the gate, trying to think of any way into the city besides the main entrance. She spent a few minutes pacing before sitting down next to the intercom with a huff, Nat was going to kill her. She stared at the cracked concrete in the evening light, the fight leaving her as fast as it appeared as she put her head in her hands with a frustrated sigh. This was not how she thought her day would be going when she left to go interview some settlers over at Oberland Station that morning. </p><p> </p><p>A shadow fell over her after a few minutes, causing her to look up. It was a woman, looking extremely bloody and dazed. She would’ve been beautiful in any other context, but a massive gash marred the left side of her face, blood dripping down onto a dirty ripped vault suit, it looked as though she’d been mauled by a bear. </p><p> </p><p>Piper stood up, “Hey, you okay?”</p><p> </p><p>The woman gave her an incredulous look, and Piper almost laughed at how stupid her question had been.</p><p> </p><p>“Obviously not, you need to get into the city?”</p><p> </p><p>The woman spoke, her voice dry and scratchy, “I need a doctor.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper ran forward as the woman swayed on her feet, “Whoa, okay. I’ll get you there.”</p><p> </p><p>She supported the woman as they limped over to the intercom, she pressed her thumb into the buzzer and held it until the annoyed voice of Danny came on, “Can you quit it, Piper? I’m not letting you in!”</p><p> </p><p>Piper sighed, “Danny, I got injured, she needs a doctor.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not falling for that one-“</p><p> </p><p>The woman spoke, “Please, help me.”</p><p> </p><p>There was a long pause on the intercom before the gate moved, the long creaking hiss like music to her ears.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Piper sat at the noodle stand, tapping her foot against the rusted metal bar under the stool she was perched upon. The woman had passed out once they got the gate open, and Piper had carried her to Doctor Sun herself, all too aware that time was precious and trading her off to some idiot guard was going to take longer than getting her there herself. Mayor McDonough looked extremely pissed when she walked through the gate, but he let her pass without a word. Piper took that as a victory, something to shove in McDonough’s face later. </p><p> </p><p>She decided it would be best to wait for the woman, considering she was the one to bring her to the doctor in the first place, and it didn’t seem like anyone was looking out for her anyways. God knows what kind of creature had caused those kinds of wounds, but Piper wasn’t coming up with anything small and cute. <em> Rough introduction to the outside world, </em>she thought idly, stirring the noodles in her cup around for the fiftieth time that hour. She didn’t have much of an appetite as it was.</p><p> </p><p>A few more minutes passed before the door at the doctor’s booth opened and Doctor Sun appeared, looking over to her with tired eyes. He waved at her, gesturing for her to follow him back through the door. She got up, cup of noodles forgotten as she came over and followed Doctor Sun through the door.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The surgery area was dank and musty, with an undertone of the iron smell of blood. The woman was laying out on one of the tables, a blanket draped over her and her head half-shaven and covered in gauze. Piper winced as she remembered how shredded the side of her face had looked at the gate. </p><p> </p><p>“I stitched her up and gave her some stimpacks and antibiotics. Whatever attacked her was vicious. I’m amazed she even managed to walk to the gate, considering the condition of her left quadricep. I can release her once she wakes up, the stimpacks should heal most of the deeper damage within the next three days.” Doctor Sun paused, rubbing his tired eyes with his fist, “I’m assuming you can take her for the night, Miss Wright.”</p><p> </p><p>“I dunno, Doc,” Piper fiddled with the frayed end of her coat, “I- We’re not exactly acquainted, beyond the whole ‘I saved your life’ schtick.”</p><p> </p><p>“I suggest you get acquainted when she wakes up, I have to close up for the night.” He turned around from where he was walking back towards the exit, “The Dugout Inn would work, but I am concerned about her not having a caretaker, the injuries were… severe, to put it lightly.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper sighed, weighing her options, eventually the altruistic side of her won out, possible consequences be damned, as was her usual, “Alright Doc, I’ll keep an eye on her.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Playing the game again has really inspired me, thank you for the comments and kudos so far!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Piper would be lying to say that she wasn’t dying to ask the mysterious vault dweller about a million questions. But the woman, who she had decided to start calling Blue, had spent nearly the past twenty-four hours fading in and out of consciousness on the couch of the tiny home she shared with her younger sister. She had barely managed to get Blue past the threshold of the house before she had almost passed out again, and it’s been that way ever since. Having what basically amounted to an injured stranger in her home wasn’t great for her sleep, even if the woman was so injured and drugged out of her mind that even Nat could probably knock her flat. Piper wasn’t the most hated reporter in Diamond City for nothing, but the Good Samaritan in her almost always won out over her sense of self-preservation. Of course, the deer in the headlights look the woman had any time she awoke hinted at her really holding no ill-will towards Piper, but the short, 2 minute conversations they had weren’t really enough to get a good gauge on her. </p><p> </p><p><em> “Where am I?” </em> She had said nearly every time Piper woke her up for some more antibiotics and med-X, “ <em> Why are you helping me?” </em></p><p> </p><p>Piper wasn’t going to lie, she liked feeling like a savior every now and then, rather than the no-good snoop she was. Knowing how much that amount of Med-X tended to screw with reality, Piper held her tongue every time she caught Blue with an eye half-open, giving her a blank, glazed-over stare that suggested Blue wasn’t even in this plane of reality, much less even slightly coherent. </p><p> </p><p>Still, she had her theories. Blue came from one of the sealed Vaults in the north, probably the first unfortunate soul to come above ground in centuries. And it looks like she got mauled by a Yao Guai, so she probably had a run in with one on the way to Diamond City. Or it could have been a Deathclaw, but those guys weren’t exactly hard to spot, unless it was a Chameleon Deathclaw, but those lived out in the swamp, near the Glowing Sea, and there weren’t any sealed Vaults out that way, as far as she knew. But why come to Diamond City in the first place? Piper was antsy to have Blue become coherent enough to interview, she could see this story would be huge</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Blue was finally coherent and healed enough by the next morning to sit up on the couch. Piper nearly had a heart attack when she came downstairs that morning from a well-deserved nap after she drafted the last article for this week’s issue of the paper. Blue had been sitting up on the couch, in the shirt and pants Piper loaned her, flipping through one of the old issues of the paper with a curious expression. Hearing Piper’s undignified yelp, the woman dropped the paper onto the coffee table, her expression now guarded but still curious.</p><p> </p><p>“Your sister had the same reaction.” Blue stated, lifting her hand up to rub the bandage over her face, causing Piper to reflexively say <em> “Don’t.” </em> In the same tone she used when Nat did something she wasn’t supposed to. Blue immediately dropped her hand back into her lap. </p><p> </p><p>Piper coughed and brushed off the nonexistent dust on her jacket, trying to regain her composure, “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting to see you up and about- well, not about.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue nodded astutely, she really didn’t seem to be very expressive when she wasn’t drugged out of her mind, “I woke up a few hours ago, thanks for helping me out.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I wasn’t going to let you just die out on the street.” </p><p> </p><p>Blue cracked a small smile, half obscured by the bandages, “I appreciate it. If there’s any way I can repay you- well, I don't have any money.” She paused, her brow furrowing, “Things are very different now.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper came over and sat down on the couch next to the woman, “Well, I can think of one thing,” Blue gave her a curious look, “How about an interview? It’s not everyday a half-mauled vault dweller just turns up at the gates of Diamond City, people must be dying to hear what you have to say.”</p><p> </p><p>The woman laughed, it was subdued and nearly silent, Piper found it a bit charming, if she was being honest. Blue rubbed her chin in thought, “Sure. I owe you one, uh-“ she paused for a few seconds, the cogs apparently turning in her head, “What’s your name?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper was a bit taken aback, she had completely forgotten introductions during the past few days, “The name’s Piper, I run the most-hated newspaper in Diamond City, Publick Occurrences,” she said it with a drawl, but Blue just looked concerned, “How about you, Blue?”</p><p> </p><p>“Blue?” Her brow furrowed, Piper couldn’t help her grin.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, Blue, like your jumpsuit.” Piper pointed over to where she had hung the jumpsuit off the locker to dry after attempting to scrub the blood out of it yesterday.</p><p> </p><p>She paused for a long moment, long enough to make Piper wonder if she said something wrong, “Well, I like that. I don’t have a name.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper decided to just take it in stride rather than push her on it, “Alright, Blue. Let me grab my notepad and I’ll ask you a few questions.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>For agreeing to be interviewed, Blue was certainly reluctant to answer her questions. Piper was a little frustrated by it, but she just figured she needed to find a different way of asking them. </p><p> </p><p>“Where are you from?”</p><p> </p><p>“Boston.”</p><p> </p><p>“I meant Vault, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh. Vault 111.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m loving the in depth answers, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue didn’t seem very good at picking up on sarcasm, because she just nodded as a response.</p><p> </p><p>Piper paused, setting her pen down, “How about this; can you tell me about your time in the vault?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue leaned back on the couch, her uncovered eye focused on the ceiling, “I don’t remember much of it, my family and I were frozen-“</p><p> </p><p>Piper sat up a bit straighter, eyes wide, “Wait. You were frozen? Blue, are you telling me you were alive before the war?”</p><p> </p><p>“Which war?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper gave an incredulous laugh, “The one that gave us this lovely landscape of demolished buildings and nuclear radiation every ten feet? You’re telling me you saw everything before they blasted it into pieces?” </p><p> </p><p>“Yes, I did.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper felt giddy, “oh-ho my god, ‘The Woman Out of Time’. So how would you describe your life back then?”</p><p> </p><p>“I- I practiced law.”</p><p> </p><p>“A lawyer, huh? And what was justice like back then?”</p><p> </p><p>“I made sure everyone got a fair trial. That they didn’t get rolled over by the system. The system was pretty broken, though.” </p><p> </p><p>“A guardian of the downtrodden, huh? So tell me, the world back then, what was it like?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue ran a hand through her hair, her voice bitter, “It’s the same old thing. People fighting each other instead of working together. Everything going to hell, but no one doing anything about it.”</p><p> </p><p>“So you’ve seen the Commonwealth. Parts of Diamond City. How does it compare to your old life?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we had clean hospitals…” Blue touched the gauze on her face, “Can you even compare the two? The world out here? It’s not even close to the one I left.”</p><p> </p><p>“Feeling a little homesick, are we? Can’t say I blame you. Now, the big question, how’d you end up here in Diamond City?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue paused, playing with the end of her t-shirt, “When I left the vault, I went to my old neighborhood and then ended up in Concord. There was a group of people trapped in the Museum of Freedom by a Raider group. The leader of the people inside said he was the last of the Minutemen.” </p><p> </p><p>“Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.”</p><p> </p><p>“Were they big?”</p><p> </p><p>“They were basically the government of the Commonwealth for a while, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh. Well, I met the last of them, a man named Preston Garvey,” Piper nodded her encouragement for Blue to continue, writing notes down all the way. “Preston and I cleared out the town using some old power armor, but then a giant lizard came out of the sewer and attacked me. I fended it off while Preston evacuated the group to my old neighborhood, but it ripped me right out of the power armor. I killed it, but it already did a number on me. So I walked down a road until a trader gave me directions here, she said you had the best doctor in the Commonwealth.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper dropped the pen, looking up at Blue in disbelief, “you killed a Deathclaw your first day being thawed out?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue’s face was turning red, “Yeah.”</p><p> </p><p>“Concord is nearly half a day away from here.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue rubbed her bandaged leg but stopped once she caught the glare Piper was giving her, “Wasn’t an easy trip.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper softened her voice, “It’s a miracle you even made it to the front gate, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” Blue had buried her face in her hands, “I thought I was going to die.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, unlucky for you, you met me.” Piper quipped, setting down her notepad, “Look, you can stay here for however long you need. And how about this; if or when you head out, I’ll come with you, watch your back, teach you about the world now. Maybe even prevent you from getting mauled by another Deathclaw.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue met her eyes for the first time since they met, but it wasn’t long before she broke it off, “That would be nice. Thank you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Why do people treat you like that?” </p><p> </p><p>Piper looked up from fiddling with the stupid printing press, which had broken down for the second time that morning, “Like what?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue made a face, the ugly red of the scar on her cheek bunching with it, “like you’re trash.”</p><p> </p><p>Doctor Sun had come by once or twice in the past week to fuss over Blue, finally giving her a clean bill of health the day before and removing the bandages. Blue had seemed just as tense and awkward as ever, but it was clear she thought highly of the doctor. As for what she thought of Piper so far, it was hard to tell, but she seemed to like her for the most part. She was starting to relax around her and Nat at least. Piper has even walked in on Blue helping Nat out with her homework a few times in the past day or two. </p><p> </p><p>Blue had spent the past few days before that sleeping off the last of her injuries and Piper was busy writing her interview with her into an article, so they hadn’t spoken much. But even when Piper got a chance to sit down and ask Blue questions, the woman wasn’t exactly the talkative type, especially about her life before the war. She mentioned something about a family, but she didn't respond to Piper after that. Seemed like a bit too touchy of a subject for Piper to push her on in good conscience, so she left her alone on it.</p><p> </p><p>“I dunno if you noticed, Blue, but most people around here aren’t big fans of the press. Especially when you print the truth.”</p><p> </p><p> Blue readjusted her position in the fold up chair she’d pulled out into the garage, “So, some things don’t change.”</p><p> </p><p> “Seems so.” Piper fumbled and dropped her wrench into the bowels of the printing press, “Goddamn it! Nat was right about this stupid thing!”</p><p> </p><p> Blue stood up and walked over to her, peering over her shoulder at the printing press, “Can I try fixing it?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper struggled for a few more seconds, trying to grab the wrench and failing, before sighing in defeat and stepping back from the damned thing, “Be my guest.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue was much lankier than Piper, so she didn’t have an issue grabbing the wrench back out of the depths of the printing press. Piper crossed her arms and watched Blue begin to fiddle with the machine, a focused look in her eyes as she started adjusting various bolts. The press came back to life after a few moments, a goddamn miracle in Piper’s book.</p><p> </p><p>“Jeez Blue, didn’t realize you were a machinist too.” </p><p> </p><p>Blue shrugged, “I’m not, but my dad was, I’ve always liked machines. Maybe I’ll become a handyman now that lawyers aren’t needed anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper laughed, maybe she didn’t know exactly what Blue thought of her, but she was starting to like her. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Piper caught Blue sitting out in the garage the night after she managed to fix the printing press. Piper had gone out to do her early morning smoke break, after her last failed attempt at writing the articles for the next edition of the paper on Sunday. Blue was so absorbed in the paper that she was reading that Piper probably could’ve released a pack of wild dogs in the streets and she wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. </p><p> </p><p>Piper blinked and let out a quiet sigh when she saw which edition she was on; <em> The Synthetic Truth </em>.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t gauge how Blue would take the article, being as enigmatic as she was. Last time Piper talked to her about the Institute, Blue just shut down. Every time since, whenever Piper mentioned the Institute, Blue changed the subject. So when she caught her looking at her, Piper put out her cigarette and stepped back inside to give Blue some privacy, she’d made it clear it wasn’t a subject she was willing to discuss.</p><p> </p><p>Piper knew well enough by now that mentioning the Institute tended to garner fear, like even saying the word would cause their families to get abducted. People didn’t like being reminded of the monster in the closet.  And they were usually quick to take out their anger on her for daring to remind them of the reality of it all; that Diamond City wasn’t safe, that another one of them could disappear at any second, or that an Institute Synth could be Mayor.</p><p> </p><p>Piper wasn’t afraid to continue pushing the truth on the public, but the look on Blue’s face after that first conversation was <em> haunting. </em>She looked broken. Piper couldn’t imagine what Blue was thinking about to get that reaction, but it wasn’t something she was willing to rip the wound open on again. Blue would tell her in time, or eventually she’d get impatient enough to pry like she usually did.</p><p> </p><p>She sighed when she heard the door open and shut behind her as she was taking off her jacket, “Hey Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good Morning.” Blue responded quietly. </p><p> </p><p>Piper just expected her to continue on past and go about whatever she usually did in the mornings, but Blue didn’t move from the door. The tension in the room was palpable, it felt suffocating.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m guessing you got something on your mind?” Piper turned around, meeting her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Blue held her gaze for a split second before staring down at her feet, “Is that article why the Mayor came by to threaten you last night?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper nodded, “I’m officially on notice, not that that’s going to stop me from telling people the truth. Everyone deserves to know, even if no one is listening.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue rubbed her elbow with her left hand, still looking at the ground, “I listened. It was just…. a lot to think about.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper gave her what she hoped was a disarming smile,“I know, Blue. You froze up the first time I told you about them so bad that I thought I broke ya.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue laughed. It was a small, delicate thing, “Turns out that finding out about a secret scientific organization that kidnaps people at random can do that to me.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper finally felt like she could breathe again, “I don’t blame ya.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Blue was sitting on the couch that was slowly becoming her bedroom, fiddling with the sewing kit that Piper kept on top of the lockers for all the unfortunately common scenarios in which she needed to repair her coat. It was nearing midnight at that point, and Piper was busy writing ideas on her notepad for the next draft of her paper. Nat had left to go stay with a friend for the night, something about a history project being due in the morning. Piper doubted that they were actually working on the project over there, most likely they were playing board games. Either way, Piper didn’t mind, as long as her little sister stayed out of causing too much trouble, she was happy. </p><p> </p><p>Blue cursed, breaking the comfortable silence they had had for most of the evening, “Sorry, I’m not very good at sewing.” She was holding the mangled jumpsuit in her hands, attempting to sew up the ragged gashes in it with some patches that Piper had laying around on top of the lockers. </p><p> </p><p>Piper waved her off, “You’re fine, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue went back to attempting to sew the patch onto the jumpsuit before looking back up at Piper, “I’m thinking about heading back to my old neighborhood. To check on Preston and the group.”</p><p> </p><p>It had been nearly three weeks since Piper had carried Blue to Doctor Sun. This wasn't the first hint that Blue wanted to wander back out into the wasteland, considering how many times Piper watched her stare longingly at the stairs that led out to the gate of Diamond City. And it didn't help that Blue was practically buzzing with unlimited energy, to the point that she actually cleaned the entirety of the main floor of the house and took apart the printing press a couple of times to fix various parts. Last week she managed to make it print the cleanest papers Piper had ever seen come out of that piece of crap. In fact, after the last of the tweaks to the printing press a week ago, Piper was surprised Blue had lasted this long. </p><p> </p><p>Piper set her notepad down in her lap, “Well, I’m ready when you are, just say the word.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue looked a bit surprised, as though she hadn’t thought Piper was serious all those weeks ago, “What about Nat?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper waved her off, “Honestly, I think she gets into less trouble when I’m not around. I’ve been needing new content for the paper anyway, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the open road.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue gave her a look with her comment on Nat, but she didn’t say anything on it and just nodded, “I feel pointless just sitting here.”</p><p> </p><p>“What d’ya say we head out in a day or two?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds good to me.” Blue fumbled with the needle, nearly stabbing herself again, "Goddamn it."</p><p> </p><p>Piper dropped her notepad on the coffee table and got up, "You need some help with that?"</p><p> </p><p>Blue hung her head in defeat, "Yeah."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with this chapter, but I think I messed with it enough that I should just throw up my hands and just surrender it to the fanfiction gods.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I've just been writing as I'm playing, thank you guys for the support so far!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The journey out to Blue’s old neighborhood was relatively quiet, a few wild mutts and a wandering raider held them up, but they managed to make it to Concord by sundown. Blue’s brain seemed to be on hyper drive, every small thing caught her attention and had her tensing up with the ten millimeter Piper had loaned her. Her patched vaultsuit was covered with a leather jacket to keep out the November cold. She seemed to burrow into her jacket at every available opportunity, almost like the turtles Piper learned about from before the war. <em> Cute, </em>she thought, but she kept it to herself.</p><p> </p><p>Blue stopped when they reached the Main Street of Concord, staring down the way at the rotting, half-eaten corpse of a Deathclaw. She seemed to freeze almost entirely at the sight of the thing, her breathing picking up in pace. Piper moved a little closer to her, laying a hesitant hand on her shoulder. Blue jumped at the contact, whipping her head around to look at Piper before letting out a long breath and relaxing under her palm. </p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay, Blue.” Piper said, trying to be reassuring. She vaguely realized this was the first time she had ever had any physical contact with Blue, outside of those few times Piper had to carry her after she passed out. </p><p> </p><p>Blue nodded, leaning into her palm slightly before steeling herself and walking forward out of Piper’s grasp. Piper dropped her hand and followed along, glancing at the Deathclaw as she passed. It’s neck had the hilt of a knife sticking out of it.</p><p> </p><p>Piper gave a low whistle, “Damn, Blue, remind me to never get on your bad side.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue turned around and gave her a small smile, “I don’t think you could, Piper.” </p><p> </p><p>Piper couldn’t help the sudden warmth in her face, so she coughed and looked away.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The neighborhood, Sanctuary Hills, as the sign said, looked almost completely abandoned, the only sign of life being the few tato plants and some light from behind boarded up windows on two of the dilapidated buildings. Blue and Piper made a beeline for the main building, a yellow house with scrap wood nailed to the holes in the walls. There was a torn up blue flag hanging from the front of the building, one of the old flags of the Minutemen. </p><p> </p><p>She followed Blue into the building, the floors were covered in various rugs over boards of plywood. There was an old woman sitting in a rocking chair next to a table that had a radio in the middle that was playing classical music. A small hallway led to two curtained off rooms from what Piper could see. </p><p> </p><p>The old woman fixed her glazed over eyes on Blue, “You came back, kid. Did you find what you were looking for?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue was hardly looking at the woman, Piper had never seen her so tense before, “I don’t know, Mama Murphy. Is Preston here?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, seems to me you found someone who can help,” the old woman’s eyes slowly turned to look at her, and Piper felt a shiver run down her spine, “Good to see you, Red.”</p><p> </p><p>“How-“ that was the nickname her dad gave her, “Who the hell are you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Hah, I’ve been wondering the same thing all my life, Red.” She coughed a little before pointing one wrinkled finger towards the hall, “Preston is on the right, kid.” And then Mama Murphy was turning back to the radio, humming out of tune along to the music. </p><p> </p><p>Piper leaned towards Blue once they were in the hall, “She gives me the creeps, big time.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue glanced sideways at her, “Same here.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Preston could’ve been a prewar relic, too. All dressed up in a colonial uniform like some kind of revolutionary soldier from long before the world was blasted to bits. He nearly stood to attention when he heard Blue’s soft hello from the doorway. Piper vaguely remembered him from a few months ago, she’d seen him in the market once or twice in Diamond City. </p><p> </p><p>He looked like he’d seen a ghost when he saw Blue standing there, “Wow, I didn’t think you made it after that fight with the Deathclaw. It’s good to see you alive and well, uh, what should I call you?”</p><p> </p><p>She glanced over at Piper for a split second, “You can call me Blue. I’m glad you guys made it here safe.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks to you. That reminds me,“ Preston paused before turning and walking a bit further into the room, going through a trunk near the end of a sleeping bag that was on top of some crates. He walked back over, handing a satchel over to Blue, “Here.” </p><p> </p><p>Blue opened it and closed it immediately, her eyebrows furrowed, “I can’t take this.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t have anything else to give you,” Preston had a tired look on his face, “You saved our lives, and we owe you.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue extended her arm, holding the satchel out towards Preston, “I didn’t do it for the money, you can take it back.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry,” Preston took the bag, suddenly looking a little less tired,  “I’m not used to folks helping out of the goodness of their hearts.”</p><p> </p><p>“Really?” Blue seemed genuinely curious, “Not a single person has helped you without needing to be paid the entire time you were on the run?”</p><p> </p><p>Preston nodded, setting the satchel down on an old, dusty dresser next to him, “Not a single person until you.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper spoke up, “Altruism is a pretty rare quality these days, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue gave her a funny look, her scarred eyebrow raising slightly, “Why?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper shrugged, “It’s hard to help somebody when you don’t know if they could be a synth sent by the Institute to kill or kidnap you. Money makes it more appealing to some, but most aren’t looking to risk it all to help a stranger.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh. Makes sense.” Blue tensed up at the mention of the Institute, and then she suddenly looked a lot more solemn, like she was thinking about something. She abruptly walked out of the room after a moment of silence, leaving Piper to stand there with Preston, who was still over at the dresser. Piper almost made to follow her, to  see what was up, but she could feel that Preston wanted to talk to her, so she stayed put.</p><p> </p><p>Preston was looking over at her, silent for a second before he spoke, “You're that reporter from Diamond City, Piper Wright, right?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper nodded, giving him a friendly smile, “I’m doing a little field reporting with Blue at the moment. Figured helping people out here was a good break from having to run the paper back home.”</p><p> </p><p>Preston laughed, “Well, once we get set up here, we should sit down for an interview, get the word out that the Minutemen want to come back.”</p><p> </p><p>“Really?” Piper was already considering questions for that interview, “and how does the last of the Minutemen plan to rebuild after Quincy?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m still working on that part,” He said, taking off his hat and setting it on the dresser, “I’m not sure I have what it takes to bring us back. But hey, you guys are here now, that has to count for something.”</p><p> </p><p>“For what it’s worth, you inspired someone enough to fight a Deathclaw single-handedly for you” Piper leaned against the doorway, “And she came back for more. Maybe it’s only one person right now, but this could be the story of the century. “The Minutemen Back From The Brink”.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” Preston looked over to her, giving her a smile, “You’re not as bad as people made you out to be when we stopped in Diamond City.”</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah, well," Piper frowned, “People aren’t fond of honesty in their newspapers. Well, the ones that can read.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ain’t that the truth,” Preston muttered, taking off his colonial duster and setting it next to his hat on the dresser, “I need to get to bed, I'm second watch. I’ll see you in the morning, Piper.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper took that as her cue to leave, walking back out into the main room to find Blue. She found the main room mostly deserted, except for Mama Murphy, who had fallen asleep next to the radio. She found Blue on one of the old ratty couches, she was fast asleep with her hand on her pipboy dial, the soft sound of Diamond City Radio playing from it. Piper sighed, smiled, and went to get a couple of blankets from one of the shelves in the room. Draping one over Blue, she went to the armchair in the corner and pulled the other blanket over herself. It was barely a minute before the sounds of the two radios playing faded into nothingness and she fell asleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I want to help you rebuild the Minutemen.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue was leaning up against one of the pillars that held up the roof of the workshop area, her arms crossed and her head inclined towards Preston. Preston looked up from where he was nailing yet another board to the side of the house, he looked surprised. She and Blue had been there for about a week, helping the lot of them set up some defenses, water pumps, and a small farm. More settlers had started to come in and clean out the rubble from the other houses, seemed like the word Preston had sent with the trading caravan was starting to pay off. The entire time Blue had worked quietly and diligently, almost to the point where Piper didn’t even really see her for more than a minute for days on end. It almost felt like Blue was avoiding her, avoiding all of them, really. </p><p> </p><p>And here was Blue yet again, after disappearing for nearly the entire day, her vault suit traded out for some ratty overalls and an moth-eaten shirt, now covered in mud and grease. </p><p> </p><p>Preston stood up straight, setting the hammer on a table next to him, “That’s good to hear.”</p><p> </p><p>Preston, with Piper’s help, had managed to amass a grand total of three potential Minutemen. Piper, with her- admittedly- vast combat experience, had offered to help train them with him. So far it was going... not great, if Piper was being honest. Between writing new articles on Sanctuary and training with Preston, she had gotten a pretty good feeling on why the Minutemen fell apart in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>Preston walked over to Blue, talking to her quietly enough that Piper couldn’t hear what they were talking about from her little makeshift desk and typewriter in the corner. It was hard to resist trying to listen in, but she wouldn’t have been able to make out the words anyway. Eventually, after a few more seconds, their conversation ended, and Preston left, leaving Blue standing there across from Piper.</p><p> </p><p>Blue immediately caught her eye, holding it for a second before walking over with a pinched look on her face, “Preston wants me to go help out a settlement up North, Tenpines Bluff.”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t sound very excited,” Piper noted, it felt good to talk to Blue again after all these days, “Need a hand?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue gave her a soft smile, nodding, “Let’s get going.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Traveling with Blue was different now. She held herself with more confidence, and she moved with a swiftness and a grace that Piper rarely saw in the presence of others. Despite the constant danger and chaos of the wasteland, Blue seemed more in her element here than anywhere else. And Piper couldn’t blame her, there was something freeing about only having to worry about survival, the petty squabbles and politics falling away in favor of the objective honesty of the blasted out ruins and irradiated forests. </p><p> </p><p>Blue also seemed on edge, though, like she could hear the entire world around them, things even Piper couldn’t pick out from the creaking of trees and the static of the occasional rad storm. Blue used whatever she was able to pick up on in the background noise of the Commonwealth to evade any and all fights, to the point where Piper hadn’t even seen another soul in hours after they left Tenpines Bluff to go take out a raider gang in Lexington. </p><p> </p><p>When they broke into the ancient Corvega plant, Piper realized a few things. One, Blue was a crack shot; she missed a grand total of <em> once </em> the entire time Piper had the mind to glance over in the few moments that she wasn’t fending off her own waves of raiders. Two, Blue had the laser focus and discipline of a trained soldier, despite just being a lawyer as far as Piper was aware. And three, Piper was probably going to end up owing her life to this woman more times than she’d be able to count. </p><p> </p><p>Blue was laying down in the stairwell to the factory floor, the sounds of a firefight breaking out from the protectron she’d managed to hack into fighting for them. Piper was flat against the stairs next to her, a small grimace on her lips as she held her hand on a bullet wound in her thigh. Blue handed her a stimpack, her eyes never moving from the top of the stairs, her pistol gripped tightly in one hand.</p><p> </p><p>Piper took it gratefully, turning over on her back to jam it into her thigh, “Never knew you were a soldier, Biue.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wasn’t,” She spared her a glance, her eyes conveying an emotion that Piper knew all too well; grief. “My husband was.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper didn’t get a chance to respond, or even think of what to say before they heard the Protectron hit the ground.  She was barely on her feet by the time Blue was already up the stairs, shots ringing out against the industrial steel beams of the factory floor. </p><p> </p><p>————————————</p><p> </p><p>They came out  tattered and victorious, Piper silently cursing herself for forgetting to bring along the sewing kit for all the new bullet holes riddling her dad’s old coat. The sun was setting as they climbed the hill from the plant, walking towards a mostly destroyed brick building that they’d cleared the radroaches out of a few hours earlier. </p><p> </p><p>They made it up the stairs, under the small overhang with an old chair and Piper’s sleeping bag in the corner. Blue all but collapsed into the chair, her head falling back as she let out a big sigh and rubbed her eyes with her hands.</p><p> </p><p>Piper sat on top of the sleeping bag she’d set down earlier, giving Blue an amused look, “You good, Blue?”</p><p> </p><p>“No. That was <em> a lot </em>.” Blue dropped her arms, staring up at the ruined ceiling, “My head feels like it’s on fire.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like walking out of one world and into this one, it really <em> was </em> a lot. Maybe she was too used to the whole life and death schtick at this point to really feel it. But she could empathize, “I bet. I'll keep watch, you can sleep off the trauma.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue seemed barely conscious, the only sign she heard her a vague nod. Piper leaned back with a sigh, reloading her ten millimeter and staring out onto the horizon. The night went by without further incident, and eventually she drifted off as well.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The journey back was probably the most Piper had ever heard Blue talk. It was the most relaxed Blue had ever looked, too, swinging her arms and humming along with the radio that she had put on during their walk back to the Bluff. </p><p> </p><p>“My parents used to live near here.” Blue said suddenly, pointing at a ruin filled with cars and a giant square building off to one side of the lot, “They used to take me there when I was in high school.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper looked over at her, noticing the way she seemed to almost bounce along, no longer as robotic and scared, but she could still see the way she tilted her head, the way she silently guided the two of them through the wasteland with her keen ears alone, even with the talking and the radio on. “Really? What was it?”</p><p> </p><p>“It was a drive-in movie theater,” Blue stopped, gazing over at it through the fence, “we shouldn’t go in there, though.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper turned and looked over the lot, nothing in particular jumping out to her besides the irradiated pool in the middle. A few moments passed before she finally spotted a molerat sticking its nose out of the dirt near the other edge of the lot, “Jeez, Blue. Did they give you some upgrades in that freezer they put you in?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue gave her a look, one that once again didn’t really fully meet her eyes, but she was smiling all the same, “Guess the truth is out.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper snorted, “So, what was high school?” </p><p> </p><p>Blue stared off into the distance, her brow furrowing, “We had four different levels of education in the old world; Primary, secondary, undergraduate, and graduate. High school is secondary education, you go for four years when you’re around fourteen. It was… lonely, for me. I met my husband there, though, we were just friends then. He made it a little less lonely.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue stopped talking, leaving Piper to stand there for a few moments before she decided it was okay to speak up, “He sounds like he was a good guy.”</p><p> </p><p>“He was,” Blue looked down at her feet, fidgeting with her pipboy again, “but yeah, high school was considered a “rite of passage” in my time. I guess you don’t have anything like it now.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper shook her head, “I only really had one school growing up; an old lady taught us how to read and write, do basic math, and then kicked us out as soon as we could help out in the fields .”</p><p> </p><p>Blue’s eyes widened slightly, she looked up, “Really?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yep, there wasn’t much point in learning anything else, but I always managed to sneak in some old newspapers and books anyway,” Piper adjusted her cap, fingers brushing against the small piece of paper that said “press” on the side, “Came in handy.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue seemed deep in thought again, her hands still fidgeting with her pipboy, “Maybe the schools could come back, eventually.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper glanced her way, “well, Diamond City teaches kids up until sixteen.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue seemed lost in thought, definitely done talking for the moment. </p><p> </p><p>Piper paused for a second, looking back out over the lot at the molerats before continuing on down the road, “C’mon Blue, let’s not stick  around too long, those things are vicious.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue nodded and followed after her, a sudden silence falling over her that lasted all the way back to Tenpines Bluff.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I had some major writer's block on this one for a few days. I know where I wanna take it but it's the whole *getting there* part, y'know?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>BIG Trigger Warning on this chapter. I can't say which because that would spoil it, but read at your own risk.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Again!”</p><p> </p><p>The sounds of laser rifles being recharged filled the air, Preston standing off to one side of the shooting range with a cavalry sword in hand. He held it high in the air before slashing it downwards, a cacophony of zaps sounding off as he did. He looked exhausted and frustrated, a perfect reflection of how Piper was feeling on her third day back in Sanctuary. The new Minutemen were all teenagers, rash and wanting to prove something. </p><p> </p><p>“Again!”</p><p> </p><p>Piper had enough new stories at this point to write out four months-worth of papers, enough to justify finally heading back to Diamond City for a long weekend of making prints for Nat to sell after school. But first she just needed to find Blue to tell her she was leaving.</p><p> </p><p>“Again!”</p><p> </p><p>Blue had been missing since sunrise, Sturges said she went somewhere to the west of Sanctuary, up in the hills. Piper felt a little betrayed that Blue had left her behind, but now she was mostly just more and more worried the closer it inched to sunset.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, I need to get going, Preston.” She said, already halfway through walking away from the shooting range, “Blue’s been gone all day.” was all she really gave in way of explanation, but Preston simply smiled and nodded before raising his sword again. </p><p> </p><p>First she checked the workshop and the house attached to it; nothing. Next up was the other little house that Marcy and Jun had claimed as their own; She got shouted out the door the moment Marcy laid eyes on her, but Jun just gave her an apologetic look and told her that they hadn’t seen Blue either. </p><p> </p><p>Piper sat cross legged on the cracked sidewalk, lighting up a cigarette and taking a long drag. She exhaled the smoke and let out a defeated huff before standing up again, this time walking towards the western exit to Sanctuary. She passed by a guard post and a turret on the way out, the sound of the turret’s motor blending in with the rustling of the wind through the trees.</p><p> </p><p>The path up the hill was littered with the bleached out bones of Blue’s old neighbors. The thought alone made a tingle of fear shoot up Piper’s spine: if it had been only a moment earlier, Blue would’ve been one of them, too.</p><p> </p><p>She eventually passed by a fence and was left staring at a giant platform: Vault 111.</p><p> </p><p>The area around the vault elevator was eerily still, like the wind just simply stopped the moment it reached the edges of the fences surrounding it. Piper dropped the cigarette on the dirt and stepped it out, looking around for any sign of her friend. This place gave her the creeps, but she made herself walk around the entire perimeter before heading back down into Sanctuary with no Blue in sight. </p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t about to give up that easy. She had survived poisonings and cultists, and she wasn’t about to be defeated by a missing pre-war relic. And yet it seemed that Blue was still elusive.   As the sun inched closer to the horizon, Piper walked the length of the skeletal cul-de-sac, her eyes peeled for any flash of blue against the blasted out houses.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Codsworth was near the front of the only house in the neighborhood with a door, clipping at nonexistent bushes and humming to himself. Piper managed to slip past him without being noticed, fumbling with the lock in the purple light of the sunset. The building was deathly silent as she entered, and nearly pitch black. Beams of weakening sunlight came in between the boards on the windows, illuminating what looked like an old kitchen and dining room. It looked like it hadn’t been touched since the war. </p><p> </p><p>Piper wandered around the room for a second, coming up to an old icebox with decaying paper stuck to the front of it. There were notes about grocery lists and supplies for the Mister Handy. There were notes about someone named Shaun and notes that were written by someone named Nate.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Had to go into work early. I love you. -Nate </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Want to go to the park next weekend? Yes/No -Nate </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Took Codsworth in for repairs, I’ll see you tonight. I love you. -Nate </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Reminder to self: take Shaun to the doctor on Tuesday for his shots. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The rest were so old and faded that Piper couldn’t read them in the low light, but her heart felt like it stopped for a couple beats. She suddenly felt like even more of an ass for being nosy than usual, <em> This was your family, wasn’t it, Blue? </em></p><p> </p><p>Blue had never even mentioned her husband’s name, much less anything about kids. Her throat felt like it was closing up, a near-silent choking sound as she turned and leaned against the kitchen island. <em> Her family, her son. God damn it, Blue. </em>She couldn’t even imagine losing something like that. Sure, her mom went missing long ago, and her dad had been gone for six years now. But losing a child? Well, the only equivalent she could imagine was Nat, and the thought alone nearly made her have a panic attack. </p><p> </p><p>A loud bang snapped her out of it, her gun already unholstered before she fully knew where the sound even came from.  She ran the length of the hallway in less than a second, gun-first into what looked like an old nursery. A familiar figure was sitting huddled up against the wall, a gun thrown across the room. She felt that panic rise again, this time stronger, “<em> Blue! </em>”</p><p> </p><p>Blue didn’t even acknowledge her shout, her head in her hands and a bottle of whiskey open next to her feet. She was clearly drunk, shaking like she was crying. Piper suddenly found herself at a loss for words, her feet stubbornly rooted in place while her mind screamed at her to move. </p><p> </p><p>Blue finally noticed her standing there after a few seconds, a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face, mouth parted slightly and her jaw working like she was trying to remember how to talk. Piper felt much the same, but she eventually forced some words out, “<em> What the hell, Blue” </em></p><p> </p><p>The ringing in her ears finally stopped, the soft sound of someone talking playing from Blue’s pipboy. It didn’t sound like the radio. </p><p> </p><p>“Piper-” Blue began, but Piper was already next to her on the floor, her hands on her face as she looked her over for any injuries. When nothing was immediately obvious, Piper relaxed minutely, letting out a shaky breath. </p><p> </p><p>Blue grabbed her arms and held onto them, a lifeline. </p><p> </p><p>“What did you<em> do </em>,” Piper was still knelt in front of her, holding her face in her hands, thumb brushing over the ragged scar from the deathclaw. She simultaneously wanted to shake her and hug her, her arms frozen with indecision. </p><p> </p><p>“It misfired when I threw it-”</p><p> </p><p>“Bullshit.” The tension in the air was thick, anger slowly building in the pit of her stomach, “<em> Bullshit, </em>Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue was crying, and Piper quickly realized that she was too, “I just- I - I wanted it to stop- the gun misfired- I realized what I was doing-” Blue let out a sob and Piper hugged her as hard as she could, “I- they’re all gone.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper held her until she stopped sobbing, her fists balled tight into the back of Blue’s jumpsuit, “I can’t even imagine, but don’t you <em> dare </em>go with them, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue carefully put her arms around Piper, “I won’t. I promise I won’t.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper leaned back on her knees and wiped her eyes, “I’m going to hold you to that.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wouldn’t expect anything else.” Blue let out a long, shaky sigh before offering the bottle of whiskey her way, “We could both stand to be more drunk for this.”</p><p> </p><p>“Agreed.” Piper took the bottle, turning it around to try and make out the label, “What the hell happened, Blue?”</p><p> </p><p>“I… I went to see Nate today.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper paused, carefully setting the bottle down next to her, “I’m sorry, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>“December eighth is his birthday. He’d be thirty-two today- well, two-hundred forty-two, I guess.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper was at a loss for words, instead choosing to just put her hand on Blue’s knee. The pain in her face was intense, her eyes hollow and devoid of life. A dead woman walking.</p><p> </p><p>Blue didn’t look at her again, she just stared at the dilapidated crib on the other side of the room, “I miss them so badly,” Her voice cracked, “I thought we would make it together, we always did. Us against the world.”</p><p> </p><p>She paused, wiping her eyes before continuing, “I woke up and they were right there, right in front of me. I watched them take Shaun and kill Nate. I couldn’t do anything to save them.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper scooted over until she was on the ground next to her, taking a swig of the whiskey and cringing at the burning taste of it, “The Institute?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue nodded, “I think so.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper stayed silent, staring up at the beams of the ceiling.</p><p> </p><p>“Why do I get to be here when they don't?” Blue’s voice was thick with grief, her entire body looking like it weighed a thousand pounds, “why did they take my baby?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper handed her the whiskey, which Blue drank like it was water, “I can’t tell you, Blue. But we’ll make the bastards pay.”</p><p> </p><p>“Damn right.” Blue stood up, swaying badly, and dropped the whiskey onto the floor, the amber liquid spilling out over the dusty floorboards. She stumbled over to her 10mm pistol, picking it up and nearly falling over in the process, “I’m going to kill every last one of them.” </p><p> </p><p>A cold trickle of fear went down Piper’s spine at the look in Blue’s eye, but she kept her expression as neutral as possible, “C’mon Blue, let’s finish off this bottle together.” </p><p> </p><p>And the murderous look was gone, replaced with a drunken giddiness as Blue all but fell back onto the floor next to her. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Aaaaaand it's up! There was a little delay in updating due to some preparations I had to make for surgery. Speaking of that, I'm getting surgery on August 14th (2020), so I may or may not update for the next couple of weeks depending on how I'm feeling.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Aaand I'm back.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Piper woke up with a headache that could only be described as having a tiny squirrel foraging for nuts inside her brain. The light streaming in from the holes in the ceiling was horrific on her bleary half-opened eyes. Her mouth tasted like mothballs and 100-years past due whiskey. She groaned when she heard heavy footsteps come down the hall and stop right at the door. It was Blue, standing there like she got some beauty sleep on a mattress made of clouds rather than the dirty blown out floor of her missing son’s bedroom-</p><p> </p><p>Piper’s eyes flew open and she was on her feet in a second, the world around her pitching sideways as she gritted her teeth against the urge to vomit. She couldn’t afford to with Blue standing right in front of her, a concerned furrow in her brow with one hand outstretched to try and steady her. Piper waved her hand away, she didn’t need help standing, at least not yet. </p><p> </p><p>Piper pinched the bridge of her nose in a futile attempt to stop the ground from pitching under her like the deck of those old, shitty boats that some fishermen and travellers used to get up and down the coasts of the Commonwealth, “How the hell are you not comatose, Blue?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue shrugged sheepishly, “College?” She held out a canteen and some pills that Piper didn’t quite have the mental facilities to identify at that moment, “Here.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know what the hell college is, but I need some of it,” Piper took them out of Blue’s hands and shakily made her way over to a small armchair in the corner of the room, her arm braced against the skeletal wall so she wouldn’t fall flat on her face on the way there. Fucking hangovers.</p><p> </p><p>She downed the pills and threw the canteen back to Blue, missing by a mile and hitting one of the ancient picture frames on the wall, causing it to fall off the wall and crash on the ground with a loud snap. A small jolt of panic went through her as she suddenly felt a <em> lot </em> more awake. She was expecting Blue to be pissed when she met her eyes, but she was <em> laughing </em>at her. </p><p> </p><p>“Nice shot.” Blue picked up the canteen off the floor, kicking the broken frame with her boot and answering Piper’s panicked sputtering before she even had a chance to finish, “I always hated that thing, you did me a favor.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper felt her headache subside slightly, enough to have that sense of concern creep it’s way back in, “How are you holding up, Blue?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue kept her head turned towards the broken picture frame, her brow furrowing , making her profile a lot harsher than normal, “I- ….Better.” She looked over at her, “I want to find the man that killed my husband and stole my son. Even if he’s dead, even if he can’t be found. I can’t- I can’t just let myself not <em> try </em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper nodded, carefully standing up from the chair and shuffling her way towards Blue, “I’m here with you, Blue, as long as you want me around.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue gave her such a serious look that it made her heart jump into her throat for a split second, “You’re my closest friend, Piper. I’m not doing this without you.”</p><p> </p><p> “Right.” Her stomach dropped, and she couldn’t quite place why, “Well, no use in standing around.”</p><p> </p><p>“You sure you don’t need to sit down for a bit?” Blue raised a concerned eyebrow, “You’re looking a little... Pale.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper was going to regret this, but she shook her head, “I’ll walk it of," She playful wacked Blue on the shoulder as she passed her by, "Stop worrying so much, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>And regret it she did, at least for the first few hours of walking. After a few goodbyes to Preston and the other townsfolk, Blue and Piper picked their way back to Diamond City. It was slow going due to her hangover, the concerned faces Blue was making at her would have been almost funny if not for her constant spinning headache and occasional bouts of nausea. Still, she pressed on, one didn’t become a journalist around here being weak-willed. </p><p> </p><p>Eventually they made it back to the gate of Diamond city, <em> home </em> . Well, home for Piper at least. She had a feeling this whole world still felt like a bad dream to Blue, hopefully she was one of the better parts of it. Still, she could almost feel the pleasure of being able to put on properly clean clothes, sit down at her own typewriter, and spend an evening in her own house. With <em>running water </em>and <em>electricity</em>. <em>God</em>, she missed it, more than she was ever aware of now that it was right in front of her.</p><p> </p><p>Blue pressed the buzzer, an unfamiliar voice coming on over the intercom, “Identify yourselves.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue nearly spoke, but Piper held up her hand, unease prickling over her skin like a radstorm. She put her hand down after a second and leaned towards Blue, “Something isn’t right. Just lie.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue turned back towards the intercom, “Traders, from Tenpines Bluff…?” </p><p> </p><p> Another faint voice spoke over the intercom, “That shithole? They ain’t nothin’, open the gate.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper recognized that voice, it was the guard captain; Captain-something Randall. She never bothered to learn his first name. Her mind was going through all the possible reasons he’d be watching the gate with another guard, but each was crazier than the last, and some were just downright paranoid guessing. Surely she wasn’t important enough by now to keep out of the city, considering all the papers she left for Nat to print barely even mentioned the Institute, let alone the Mayor.</p><p> </p><p>They walked through the gate as fast as possible, stopping just inside with a group of four guards staring at them. “Ah shit, we really need to keep better tabs on her girlfriend," The guard captain dropped a cig onto the pavement in front of the control booth, crushing it with his heel, "Alvin, you’re fired.”</p><p> </p><p>The man sitting behind the counter made a noise of protest but shut his mouth the moment Randall gave him a glare. The guards near the gate had their weapons trained on Piper, Blue standing halfway in front of her with her hand in the pocket of her jacket that concealed her 10mm pistol.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, this is a warm welcome, courtesy of the Mayor?” Piper drawled, her heart beating loud enough in her chest that she was sure Blue could hear it even if she was a mile away. </p><p> </p><p>“Shut it, smartass.” The captain walked in front of his men, his hand on the holster of his pistol but his posture almost casual, “McDonough don’t want you coming around these parts no more. Get out.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue tensed up in front of Piper, her hand tightening on the pistol in her pocket. Blue broke the silence, “Or what?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper leaned towards Blue, a warning tone in her voice, “Don’t start anything.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue gave her a look out of the corner of her eye, one that said <em> ‘I won’t, but I’ll finish it.’ </em></p><p> </p><p>“Or your girlfriend is gonna get that pretty little face of hers shot off, got it?” He drew his pistol, casually holding it near his hip, “Say, the Mayor didn’t say shit about you, might as well go on in and leave us to clean up the trash.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue pulled the pistol out of her pocket, all the guards immediately training their rifle sights on her. Piper froze, her heart all but trying to leave her body as everything slowed down to a snail's-pace. She grabbed the gun out of Blue’s hand and threw it on the ground, jumping in front of her without a second thought, “Wait!”</p><p> </p><p>The guards all lowered their weapons, Randall giving her a smirk, “Smart woman.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper steeled herself, “I’ll leave, on one condition.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure.”</p><p> </p><p>“Leave her and my sister out of it.”</p><p> </p><p>The captain sighed, “Well, McDonough didn’t say anything about either of them, so fair’s fair. Better get going, sweetheart, it’s getting dark.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper turned to leave, but Blue grabbed her arm and pulled her towards her. Their faces were close, close enough that Piper could make out the random dark flecks in Blue’s eyes. She felt heat rise in her cheeks, her mind entirely removed from what was happening until Blue started speaking.</p><p> </p><p>“What the <em>hell</em> are you doing, Piper?”</p><p> </p><p>“Making sure <em>you</em> don’t get <em>shot</em>.” Blue had the wherewithal to look sheepish at that remark.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are you gonna go? What do I tell Nat?” Blue’s grip on her arm tightened for a split second, “Do you know anyone who can help us?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper nodded, her mouth dry, “Nick Valentine, just look for the neon heart sign in the alley behind the market.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue’s eyes widened a little bit, “Is he running a brothel?”</p><p> </p><p>“That would be hilarious. No, Blue, he's on the up-and-up.” Piper paused, realizing that Blue hadn’t looked away from her like she usually did, “I’m gonna be okay Blue, I’ve camped out before. We’ll figure this out tomorrow.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper turned away but Blue pulled on her arm to stop her again, “Where am I meeting you?”</p><p> </p><p>“What?”</p><p> </p><p>“Tomorrow. Where am I meeting you.” Blue looked almost panicked, and in that moment Piper realized they had never really left each other’s side like this before, not in a situation where one of them was in danger like this. Not that Piper couldn’t handle spending a few hours in the ruins of Boston. Anxiety still wound it’s way into her chest, but she pushed it away, she had a few safe houses she had set up for this very occasion. She’d be fine, Blue would be fine too. She couldn’t let herself think any differently about it. </p><p> </p><p>“You done talking yet? Get lost already, sweetheart.” Considering what happened last time she assaulted Captain Randall, she knew it was a bad idea, but every bone in her body was screaming at her to sucker punch him straight in the face. Blue’s hand on her arm was the only thing that kept her in place, her blood still boiling as she held Blue’s gaze for a few seconds longer.</p><p> </p><p>“I- meet me back here.” Piper felt off kilter, her hands were shaking as she gently pulled her arm away from Blue’s grasp,  “See ya, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>And with that, she turned and left, she couldn’t bring herself to look back at Blue.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Don't mind me, just causally posting a chapter at 2AM</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Piper left the gate of Diamond City and headed east along one of the narrow alleyways that led down to Boston Common. She branched off the main alleyway to the south before she stopped in front of a boarded up mechanic’s shop. Pulling out a bobby pin, she picked the lock on the back door and popped her head in, checking to make sure no raiders decided to set up camp in her safe house. </p><p> </p><p>It was as empty as the day she found it, a fraying rug and a half-broken couch pushed up against the frame of what used to be a car, the engine torn out long ago. She slipped through the door once she made sure the coast was clear, locking it tightly behind her and throwing down a wooden bar to make sure nobody could use a lock pick to get inside like she did. Piper let out a long sigh as she dropped down onto the broken couch, rubbing the back of her neck to try to get the tension out of her shoulders. This was going to be a long night. </p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t stop thinking about Blue and Nat, fearing what McDonough might do to them now that Piper was basically exiled from the city. Just like the snake to let her in and out of the city until she just happened to leave for more than an evening. Perhaps she could bribe the guards to look the other way? It’s not like it was an uncommon occurrence, considering one of her biggest stories from the past 6 years she lived there was busting a bribery racket. </p><p> </p><p>Her mouth felt like cotton and tasted like dust, the headache just starting to set in from her racing thoughts. Piper fished a canteen out of her jacket pocket, chugging half of it before a sound from the corner of the room made her choke.She stood up lightning fast, already pulling her gun out of her jacket. </p><p> </p><p>There was something moving just around the side of the car, It’s form hidden by shadow. Piper crouched low to the ground, holding her breath as she inched towards it. Slowly, slowly she managed to get close enough to get a good look at it. </p><p> </p><p>It was a mongrel, digging through a pile of trash, probably got in from one of the holes in the sides of the building. She couldn’t bring herself to point her gun at it, she always hated killing dogs, even the ugly hairless ones that roamed the wasteland. </p><p> </p><p>“Hey! Get out of here!” She yelled, as loud as possible, holding her arms out to try to look bigger.</p><p> </p><p>The mongrel yelped and turned tail, running out through a hole in the back of the building.  Piper kneeled down where it had been digging as soon as it was out of sight, her paper, <em> Publick Occurrences, </em>was laying half-covered under some food wrappers.</p><p> </p><p> It was a really old copy of some story she had written years ago, criticizing McDonough’s order to out the ghouls living there at the time. Seemingly random letters were underlined in half-smudged charcoal. Under that was an undershirt, neatly folded like the ones at the clothing stores in Diamond City. Next to that was a bag, half shoved under the frame of the car, it had the grip of a pistol sticking out of it. </p><p> </p><p>Piper froze, If someone had left this stuff here, that meant they could come back at any time. And she really didn’t need any visitors. She stood up quickly, taking the paper with her and getting out of there before anyone decided to come home.</p><p> </p><p>She stood outside the door, staring up at the quickly darkening sky, “Well, fuck.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The rusted, half-collapsed steel awning that Piper had managed to find in an alley and then wedge her way under wasn’t the most ideal place to be sleeping, definitely a lot draftier than the auto shop. But at least she didn’t have to worry about waking up to any unexpected guests, except maybe a molerat if she was unlucky. She turned on her side, staring out of the crack at the bottom of where the awning almost touched the ground. The coast was mostly clear for now, but she was cold, <em> and hungry </em>, her stomach reminded her, letting out a low rumble. She sat up and dug around in her jacket, which she had been using as a blanket, pulling out a handful of candies. </p><p> </p><p>She popped one in her mouth, being careful not to crinkle the wrapper too much. She could really go for a smoke, too, but that would have to wait until morning, which was ever-slow at approaching. She really wanted to look at the paper, figure out what the marks on it meant, but it was nearly pitch black under the awning. And even with her curiosity eating away at her, she wasn't going to risk setting it on fire with her lighter.</p><p> </p><p>She stared at the side of the awning, remembering the way Blue’s eyes had looked right before she turned and left. The fear and uncertainty, the determination, <em> God </em>, that woman was going to be the death of her. She couldn’t quite place how she felt about her, but it wasn’t much of anything negative. Still, it felt like she had barely seen the tip of the iceberg with this woman. That look she had when talking about what happened to her family, how she wanted to get revenge- it still sent an unpleasant shiver up her spine. It was a familiar look, the same one she saw in the mirror after her father died. It was the look of a woman scorned, one with nothing much to lose anymore. She hoped that Blue didn't get lost in that feeling, but even having spent nearly two months straight together hadn't given Piper a good gauge on the full scope of her personality, so she couldn't say what would happen. <em>I should tell her about</em> <em>Dad, let her know she isn't completely alone in this</em>. She cut it off there, not fully awake enough to figure out how she could bring up her Dad being murdered casually to Blue, instead turning her thoughts over to her little sister. </p><p> </p><p>She wondered what Nat could be up to now, if Blue had checked up on her, she could almost imagine the eye roll that Nat would do upon finding out that her older sister got locked out of the city because of her own paper. She missed her so much, but maybe it was for the best. Piper knew she wasn’t a good influence. How could she be? She was constantly out causing trouble, just barely escaping death and another night in the jail cell. She could only really hope that Nat wouldn’t turn out like her. Maybe, just maybe Piper’s  influence on her would be lessened if she just stayed out of the city and away from her for long enough. </p><p> </p><p>Nat’s best friend was responsible, and so was her family, it was better for her to stay with them more often than not. They’d teach her how to be a respectable citizen of Diamond City, someone who wasn’t a social pariah like her no-good snoop of an older sister. She could be someone like their father, just and patient, helping people but still staying out of trouble for the most part.  It was really all she could hope for. But still, Nat had a knack for causing trouble, and every time Piper saw her it felt like her biggest fear was coming true: Nat was becoming just like her.</p><p> </p><p>Piper finished chewing the candy in her mouth, suddenly a lot less hungry. She laid back down, curling up under the blanket, trying to stay as warm as she could against the December cold as she tried to force herself to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Blue sat with her back against the large stone block that held up the statue in front of Diamond City, anxiously tapping her hands against her thighs as she kept looking between all the possible ways Piper could be coming from to meet her. The rusted sidings of the buildings nearby that were moving in the wind were like nails on a chalkboard with her anxiety already being near a ten. Turns out that Nick Valentine was probably being held hostage by a gang, or dead, knowing her luck. Now Piper wasn’t showing up like promised and all the unfamiliar noises around her were getting under her skin.</p><p> </p><p>She dug her nails into her palms and let out a shaky breath, she wasn’t going to freak out. She wasn’t going to freak out just because some siding was creaking on a half-collapsed building nearby. She took a few deep breaths, trying to focus her mind on the repetitive task of looking between the checkpoints for Piper. She could almost feel Nate standing next to her, his gentle hand pressing down between her shoulder blades, telling her to time her breathing to his. But he wasn't there, and neither was Piper, or this Nick Valentine, who was the only person who might be able to help her find who killed her husband-</p><p> </p><p>The sound of gunshots came from the east, pulling her out of her head more easily than she ever could on her own. She rubbed her face and shook her hands out, ignoring the deep grooves from her nails in her palms. She always hated downtown Boston, even before it became somehow even more of a waking nightmare.</p><p> </p><p>She waited for a while, her head constantly swiveling between the checkpoints, but there was still no sign of her. And, as the sun inched closer to the middle of the sky, Blue had a sinking feeling in her gut.</p><p> </p><p>Piper wasn’t coming.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Welp, this chapter became a behemoth, it's nearly twice the length of basically every other chapter in this story so far. Enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Piper hated to admit it, but she was very lost and <em> very </em>late. She hadn’t bothered to pay much attention to the directions she took the night before, instead too focused on avoiding the random enclaves of raiders and super mutants dotting the streets and buildings. Now she was regretting it immensely, walking aimlessly down the streets and occasionally having to duck out of sight or pick her way around the edge of a fortified area. </p><p> </p><p>Judging by the sun, it was nearly noon. She had overslept late into the morning, exhausted from the trek and drama of the day before. She hadn’t bothered to look through the paper yet, too focused on moving as fast as she could to meet Blue back at the gate of Diamond City. Realizing she was lost had.... complicated things, but not by much. Piper knew a good chunk of the city like the back of her hand, but it had been a matter of focusing long enough while dodging bullets and evading roaming threats to find one of those familiar routes through the twisting inner city alleyways. </p><p> </p><p>She eventually made it down to the big river that marked the northern edge of the city, relief washing over her at the mere sight of it. Now all she had to do was keep the river to her right and she’d make it back just fine. Well, as long as she evaded any more hostile groups of raiders and super mutants. </p><p> </p><p>The wind coming off the river was freezing, making her eyes sting and her hands hurt. She stuffed her hands in her pockets after trying in vain to pull up the threadbare scarf around her neck  and lowering her hat to cover her eyes as a bare minimum protection against the cold. </p><p> </p><p>It was an almost peaceful walk, and it gave her too much time to think. She was going to have to open up to Blue eventually, even if the thought was a little nerve wracking. Despite her nosey nature towards others, she bet most people couldn’t name more than three things that they knew about her outside of her infamy as Diamond City’s local press. And it was really that way for a reason, she hadn’t really ever had to (or wanted to) open up to someone besides maybe occasionally Nick, if she got drunk enough in his presence. </p><p> </p><p>But, Blue deserved to know that Piper was there for her; that she understood losing someone in the most violent way possible, even if she couldn’t fully comprehend what it would feel like to lose a partner. She certainly had never been as deeply and painfully in love as Blue looked in the few moments she mentioned Nate. She felt a twist in her gut while picturing the look on Blue’s face, the painful longing making her own heart ache. </p><p> </p><p>No, she never had felt or wanted to feel something like that. </p><p> </p><p>She continued on down the riverside, passing by an ampitheater full of people dressed to the nines. She took a wide berth around them; at worst they were a threat, and at best they were definitely some kind of cult. And Piper didn’t really need to go joining <em> another </em>one.  </p><p> </p><p>Once she put a good amount of distance between them and her, she jumped down off the street and onto the banks of the river, taking care to keep an eye out for any mirelurks as she picked her way under a raider outpost in front of an old clothing store. She eventually approached the bridge that was the main route into Diamond City from the North, climbing back onto the road level to avoid yet <em> another </em>raider gang that had taken up residence in an old barge that kept the bridge open at a slight incline.</p><p> </p><p>It was relieving to finally be back on her home turf, even if the first Diamond City Security guard that saw her gave her a glare. It wasn’t like she wasn’t used to it, her <em> temporary </em> inability to access the city notwithstanding. </p><p> </p><p>She saw Blue before Blue saw her, she was pacing around in front of the statue in the courtyard, her eyes firmly focused on the ground and her movement stiff, almost robotic. She had a pack on her back that Piper had never seen before, along with what looked like a new rifle. Her hair was a halo of chaos, falling in front of her face as she continued pacing. She looked like she was going to have aneurysm.</p><p> </p><p> Piper couldn’t help her grin when Blue finally looked up and froze. Piper put her hand on her hip, her grin widening, “Told ya I would be alright.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank <em> god </em>.”  Blue’s shoulders visibly relaxed, her expression relaxing into a relieved smile, the scar on her cheek turning a bit more red, “You took a while.”</p><p> </p><p>“I.. got a little lost last night. Turns out someone thought my backup shelter looked cozy, and I wasn’t going to wait around to find out who. I did get this, though,” Piper pulled the paper out from under her coat, handing it over to Blue, who looked over the paper with a puzzled expression.</p><p> </p><p>“This just looks like a paper by you- wait.” Blue scrutinized the paper further, “It’s coded, but half of it is smudged off. ‘Start at-’... the rest is nonsense.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper felt a little bit of mental whiplash, it was rare, but sometimes she was still caught off guard by how fast Blue’s brain worked certain things out, “How many puzzles did you do before the apocalypse, exactly?” </p><p> </p><p>“The patterns stood out to me,” Blue handed the paper back to her, looking a bit embarrassed.</p><p> </p><p>Blue didn’t look like she wanted any more attention over it, so Piper changed the subject to something more immediately relevant, “Did you manage to find Nick?”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“No.” Blue looked hopeless and irritated, her hand coming up to rub the bridge of her nose in frustration , “He went missing a while ago, hunting down a girl that got taken by a gang somewhere around the Boston Common.”</p><p> </p><p>“Damn it Nicky, what the hell did you get yourself into this time?” Piper mumbled to herself, then she looked back up at Blue and raised her voice back to speaking volume, “How’s Nat?”</p><p> </p><p>“She’s alright, she wasn’t <em> surprised </em>you got kicked out, but she said to tell you she misses you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I-” Piper’s voice cracked, homesickness suddenly overtaking her. She’d never been great at tempering her expressions, but she gave her a shaky smile, “Thanks for checking on her, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue reached out and touched her shoulder, sympathy clear in her voice, “ We can figure out a way to get you back into the city once we save Nick.”</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t explain it, but it suddenly felt like her face was numb. She shook her head to clear it, “Mcdonough can’t keep me out forever, corrupt guards be damned. I’m anything if not stubborn.” </p><p> </p><p>Blue grinned mischievously, her eyes crinkling up at the corners, “I know.” </p><p> </p><p>Blue turned and started walking off towards the eastern exit to the courtyard, “We should probably head out now, we’re losing daylight.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>After Blue nearly walked into the pond area of the Boston Common on accident, Piper took the lead. They really didn’t need to go and get killed by whatever lived in there on their first adventure together into the depths of Boston. She led Blue around to Park Street station, stopping outside the entrance. </p><p> </p><p>“One of the Triggermen gangs works out of an old vault down there, if Nick’s gonna be anywhere, this is our best bet.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue looked a little shell shocked, her expression neutral but some very odd unplaceable emotion emanated from her. She shook her head like she was clearing it of some bothersome thought, and pulled her rifle off of her shoulder, checking the chamber to make sure it was loaded. </p><p> </p><p>After a pregnant pause, she looked over at Piper, “Well, let’s get this over with.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper nodded, pulling her pistol out from under her jacket and chambering a round before they slowly made their way down the stairs and to a set of metal doors. Blue paused next to the door, signaling for Piper to go to the other side. Blue held up three fingers, slowly lowering them; ‘<em> three….two….one’.  </em></p><p>Blue slowly pushed the door on her side open, Piper heard someone on the inside say “huh-” before being cut off by the loud bang of Blue’s rifle going off. Blue rushed in after that, Piper less than a step behind, her pistol already trained on a triggerman struggling to pull his gun out of it’s holster. Two shots and he was down. </p><p> </p><p>Next up was one that was coming up behind the ticket booth, his machine gun trained on her. She shot him in the head as soon as he rounded the corner and lifted it. </p><p> </p><p>She turned to find another one, but the rest were already down for the count by the time she turned around. Blue was standing in the middle of the room, bodies piled around her. She didn’t seem phased, calmly reloading her rifle while humming a tune to herself.</p><p> </p><p>“Holy<em> fuck </em>Blue.” </p><p> </p><p>Blue looked over and gave her a sheepish smile, “Rifles are a bit easier to aim with.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper couldn’t think to do anything else but let out a disbelieving laugh. She was <em> really </em>glad Blue was on her side.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“I used to get off at this station when I was going to the statehouse.” Blue looked around as they stood near the tracks, guns ready. They had mostly cleared the main platform of anyone, but some stragglers were still causing them trouble.</p><p> </p><p>Piper took a potshot at one of the platforms that a couple triggermen had managed to hide behind, letting out a short, “hm?” to let Blue know she was listening. </p><p> </p><p>Blue shot another triggerman that rounded one of the old train cars in the chest, he stumbled back and fell onto the tracks, “there used to be thousands of people down here, every single day.”</p><p> </p><p>The coast seemed clear, Piper lowered her pistol and turned to Blue, trying to process the information she was telling her.</p><p> </p><p>“Really? <em> Thousands? </em>” Piper couldn’t say she’d ever seen more than three hundred people together in the same place, imagining what Blue was talking about felt almost impossible, “How many people used to live here before the war?”</p><p> </p><p>“Around three million, give or take- get down,” Blue pulled them down behind a barrier, “There’s more of those guys, near the tunnels.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper felt a little breathless, trying to picture <em> millions </em>of people walking the streets of this city. It felt incomprehensible. Civilization before was massive, the cars she passed by on the streets were once driven by people, the landscape of the city was built by people. The station they were in once moved thousands every single day. Now? Now they lived inside a tiny part of all that, probably less than five thousand in the entire Commonwealth. They had been thrown back hundreds of years of progress, scavenging apart the pieces of what used to be their crowning achievements. </p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” Blue placed her hand on her shoulder and leaned towards her like she was sharing a deep, dark secret with her, “If it makes you feel any better. I have exactly zero idea what the hell is going on nowadays.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper quirked an eyebrow, “Damn, is it that easy to read me?”</p><p> </p><p>“You get a furrow right between your eyebrows when you are trying to figure something out. It’s softer than when you’re angry, so I figured you weren’t angry.” Blue paused, staring at her, like she was trying to catch up with what she just said, a sudden shyness making her look away after a few seconds, “.... I mean, you’re very expressive. That’s what I’m getting at.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper felt her heart skip a beat, Sarcasm more readily available to her brain than whatever the hell she was feeling , “Well, damn, I was trying to go for ‘mysterious and sexy’, but ‘expressive and reckless’ is good enough.”</p><p> </p><p>“We can’t all be the lead from a noir novel,” Blue shrugged, still not exactly looking at her, “Hah, you do have a knack for running head first into trouble, don’t you?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve been shot at, poisoned, almost sacrificed by a cult- yeah, you could say I have a tendency for trouble.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue looked back up at her, both her eyebrows raising, “A <em> cult </em>?”</p><p> </p><p>A bullet hit the pillar above their heads, Piper already aiming her pistol towards a train car that some triggermen were taking cover behind, “Welp, looks like trouble found us. I’ll tell you later.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue was already aiming her rifle over the barrier they were behind, an eye looking down the scope, “Sounds like a plan.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Nick was standing there, a lit cigarette in the corner of his mouth and his ragged detective coat hanging off his synthetic shoulders. Smoke was rising out of the holes in his neck every time he took a puff of the cigarette. Blue looked <em> really </em> taken aback, but didn’t say anything to him directly. Rather, she looked over at Piper with a raised eyebrow, to which Piper just shrugged. Now was not the time nor the place to explain, not with the threat of the rest of the gang finding them at any given moment if they just so happened to stroll on in to the cafeteria to check on their buddies. <em> Three minutes, </em>Nick had said, and they’d already wasted one by just standing there while Blue gawked.</p><p> </p><p>Nick broke the silence, taking another puff of his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and stepping it out, “Gotta love the irony of a reverse damsel in distress scenario. Question is, why did our heroine risk life and limb for an old private eye?</p><p> </p><p>Blue shook her head, clearly trying to get past the fact that Nick was a synth, ” I- I need you to find someone. I don’t know how long it’s been or where they could be, but he killed my husband and I need him to pay.”</p><p> </p><p>“A spouse’s vengeance. I see.” Nick eyed Blue, sizing her up, “Well, I’ve done jobs with less. ‘Nice and easy’ never seems to make it on the menu in my line of work.”</p><p> </p><p>The clock was quickly ticking past the two minute mark, Piper reloaded her pistol, turning to face the doorway to the office. She tuned them out for a few seconds, straining her ears to try and pick up any approaching footsteps or voices. Nothing stood out to her quite yet, but she stood ready. Less than thirty seconds were left, according to the clock.</p><p> </p><p>Nick’s voice faded back in, “-turns out Skinny Malone’s got a new flame, and she’s got a mean streak. I’ll be glad to help you with yours, but now ain’t the time. Let’s blow this joint, and we’ll talk later.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper heard the door directly below the office slide open with a hiss, “We got company!”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Blue somehow managed to talk Darla down from bashing their heads in with her bat. Nick even managed to convince Skinny Malone to give them ten seconds to get out of Dodge. Piper just kept her mouth shut, all too aware that she had a tendency to make things worse in tense situations. ‘Pushy and loud’ didn’t translate well in delicate situations. She let out the breath she’d been holding once the vault door finally shut behind them.</p><p> </p><p>Blue looked visibly exhausted, collapsing onto one of the construction barriers at the bottom of the stairs. She threw her backpack and rifle onto the group next to her, unzipping the vault suit down to her collarbone. Piper followed her down and sat down next to her, taking her hat off and grimacing at the new holes a bullet had managed to punch in it. She was grateful it wasn’t her face, but she was really going to need to invest in some kind of armor with the amount of bullets she’d been collecting lately.</p><p> </p><p>“God, I’m <em> really </em>tired,” Blue let out a long sigh, rubbing her face with both her hands.</p><p> </p><p>Piper tentatively rested her hand on her back, hoping that it would come across as comforting. Blue seemed to appreciate it, letting out a low hum as her shoulders relaxed a little bit. </p><p> </p><p>Nick stood in front of them, pulling another cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it, “Thanks for getting me out, you two. Not many people know where I went, much less where to find me.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue stared at the ground, resting her elbows on her thighs, “Your assistant, Ellie, she told me you had gone looking for a missing girl somewhere around Boston Common. Piper figured you’d be down here.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I guess I owe you all a favor then. I should give Ellie a raise, now that I think about it…” He stared off down the tunnels for a moment before turning back towards them, “Now, you mentioned something about tracking down a murderer. Meet me back at my office in Diamond City and we can go over everything. Besides, I think you earned a chance to sit down and clear your head.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue’s head snapped up and she finally looked at Nick, “I’ll see you there, but I have to ask one favor.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure.”</p><p> </p><p>“Can you help me smuggle Piper back in the city?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick stood there, looking between the two of them as the silence stretched on, “I’m guessing you published that article while I was gone.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper turned bright red, it was like getting scolded by her dad, “I didn’t expect them to actually kick me out of the city for it!”</p><p> </p><p>Nick ignored her comment, taking a long drag of his cigarette, smoke billowing out of his neck, “I can do you one better, I got a favor with some of the city council members. Might take a good second to get them to overturn the Mayor’s orders, but give me a day or two and I’ll get you back in there.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper sighed in relief, “Thank you so much, Nick.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue nodded in agreement, but didn’t say anything else.</p><p> </p><p>He turned to Piper, his expression as grim as it could be, considering he didn’t have much motor function in his face, “Now, I can only do this for you once. Don’t cause more chaos than you have to once they let you back in.”</p><p> </p><p>It really did feel like getting scolded by her dad, “Wouldn’t dream of it, old buddy.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, I’m not that old,” Nick seemed to be joking, but his expression never really went out of neutral, “I’ll see you two in my office in a few days.”</p><p> </p><p>And with that, Nick walked off, leaving them alone in front of the vault. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They walked along the streets of Boston, night slowly falling over them as the air got cooler and cooler. Piper stood back a ways, checking their surroundings with her gun at the ready. She was exhausted, the lack of sleep the night previous finally catching up to her. Blue didn’t look in much better shape, the sunset accentuating the dark bags under her eyes as she turned around. White breath rose from Blue’s mouth, her shoulders rising and falling as she sighed, looking around at the darkening streets. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue pointed to their left, to a boarded up storefront near the end of the street, “We should try there for the night.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You know, you don’t have to stay out here with me.” Blue gave her a glare, but it didn’t really hold any heat behind it, Piper held up her unarmed hand, “Hey, I’m just saying.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m not gonna sleep better knowing you’re out here alone,” Blue readjusted her rifle on her shoulder, taking a glance up at the sky as she did, “Besides, it’s about to snow.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper looked up, and, as if on cue, a snowflake landed on her nose, “We should probably get inside, these can get ugly fast.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Really? The snow we used to have here was only about an inch-”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Believe me, Blue, we get pretty bad snow storms out here <em> a lot </em>these days, better safe than sorry.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue looked a little taken aback, staring back up at the sky as more snow began to fall, “Did… did nuking the planet actually <em> fix </em>the climate?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> “What do you mean?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It snowed once a year here, one or two inches maximum most years.” Her voice was suddenly thick with grief, “The last blizzard I ever saw was when I was a little kid.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper couldn’t even picture the Commonwealth without a perpetual layer of mildly radioactive snow and the bi-montly blizzard every winter. She looked up at the sky for a moment, wondering at how different things sounded from before the Great War.  </p>
<p> </p>
<p> Piper started walking after a few moments, but she stopped when she realized Blue wasn’t moving. Blue stood frozen in place, staring up in the snow with an unreadable expression.She was playing with a ring on her left hand, it looked a couple sizes too big, a smaller one keeping it from just sliding off of Blue’s finger entirely. Piper’s heart broke a little bit, she really couldn’t imagine what that kind of pain felt like.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper walked back over to her,  lightly touching her hand to Blue’s shoulder, “Come on, Blue. Let’s get inside.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue seemed to snap out of it, her eyes snapping down from the sky to stare at her. It was honestly more like she was staring <em> through </em> her, but she seemed to be listening all the same. Piper took a step back and turned around, waving her hand to signal Blue to follow her. They made their way quickly to the storefront, the snow falling in thicker and thicker flakes. The ground was already covered in a healthy layer of the stuff by the time they made it to the end of the street.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Apparently Blue was just <em> made </em>of random tools now that she had a backpack. She pulled a crowbar out of the depths of it to get the boards off the door, and then pulled out a flashlight and handed it to Piper. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper walked into the building, flicking the flashlight on as she did. It was empty besides a few skeletons and cobwebs. The walls were lined with empty clothing racks, having long been scavenged away. Blue followed behind her, clicking on a flashlight she had jury-rigged to the side of her pipboy. They roamed deeper into the shop, cleaning up a few radroaches in the back rooms before finally finding an ancient office with enough room to set up camp.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue fished a lamp out of the backpack next, setting it on a desk and switching it on. The room was bathed in an orange glow, illuminating Blue’s face in a way that made her appear otherworldly, the scar on her face almost glowing red in the light. The room looked <em> ancient, </em>the orange tinge making it feel like something out of an old photograph. The paint was peeling off the walls, the furniture completely untouched by anything other than age and dust. There was a couch along the back wall, the big desk Blue had set the lamp on was in the middle of the room with a line of filing cabinets behind it. The floor was carpet at one point, but most of it had rotted away, leaving behind a bare layer of concrete. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue reached down into the backpack after a moment, pulling out a sleeping bag and setting it on the floor, then she pulled out <em> another one </em>and tossed it to Piper.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper couldn’t help it anymore, she had to say <em> something </em>, “Did you bring half of the general store with you on your way to meet me this morning?” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s just the basics,” Blue huffed indignantly, her real emotion betrayed by the grin she was obviously trying to suppress. She seemed in a much better mood than she had been a few minutes earlier.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“‘The basics’ my ass,” Piper muttered, trying to suppress her own grin, “Did you happen to get to their food options before you ran out of room in that thing?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“As a matter of fact, I did.” Blue rummaged through her bag again, tossing a can of  cram at her, followed by some sugar bombs, “Not exactly the staples of a healthy diet, but it’s what I could find.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper sat down on the couch, opening the sugar bombs first, “Thanks, Blue.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue nodded, pulling out another can of cram and hopping up on the side of the desk. She made a face when she opened the can, “I can’t believe my parents used to eat this stuff.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hah, tell me about it. My dad used to eat the stuff like it was the last piece of food in the Commonwealth.” Mentioning her dad suddenly left her a lot less hungry, she ended up taking her time with getting another handful of the sugar bombs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue, seemingly unaware of her sudden mood shift, scooped out some of the cram and took a tentative bite. “Bleh. The fact that this stuff has lasted over two-hundred years and <em> still </em>tastes the same is extremely disturbing.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Damn, I thought that was just the radiation that made it taste like that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Unfortunately not,” Blue took another bite, her face scrunching up in disgust, “I don’t think it being cold is doing it any favors.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But you’re gonna keep eating it?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue nodded, stubbornly taking another bite.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They sat in silence for a few minutes as they ate, the noise of wind hitting the walls of the building the only real sound until Blue hopped off the desk. She picked up one of the sleeping bags, laying it out on the floor and sitting on top of it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper felt a bit bad, “Are you sure you don’t want the couch?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, I slept on a bed last night.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper breathed in, ready to ask again, but Blue just gave her a look, “Fine.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There were a couple more seconds of silence, Blue sitting there with her legs crossed, repeatedly tapping her hand against her knee as she scanned the room. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she remained silent. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper almost said something to break the sudden weird tension in the room, but Blue beat her to it, “You almost got sacrificed by a cult?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh,” Piper was a little taken aback, having almost forgotten about their conversation in the subway tunnels, “Yeah, <em> almost </em>, thank god. I’d been working on a story about irradiated drinking water in Bunker Hill at the time. I traced the water back to its source, and what do I find?  The Children of Atom, setting up like they own the place.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The <em> what </em> ?” <em> Right, </em>of course Blue wouldn’t have the slightest clue about that particular strain of crazy out in the wasteland.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“They worship radiation- yep, it’s about as stupid as it sounds. Anyway, they found me as soon as I found them, and it turns out they are not very fond of reporters. So, to atone for my trespassing, they decided to make a sacrifice to Atom- me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Atom is their... god?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Bingo. So I’m kneeling there, about to get the boot into this huge sewer pipe when suddenly I blurt out, ‘Atom, he reveals himself!’”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue looked somewhere between wanting to laugh and cry, “Seriously?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper nodded, “And they bought it! They pulled me back from the ledge and gave me their induction ceremony. You are looking at an official acolyte of Atom. It took me a few days, but I managed to sneak away and got Bunker Hill security to go in and clean the place up.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh my god,” Blue started laughing, “I can’t believe you managed to do that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, it was definitely better than being poisoned, I’ll tell you that much.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They talked late into the night, Piper telling her other crazy tales from her adventures around the wasteland. Blue told her random stories about the old world, but they never touched on anything deeper than that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This was easy;  the small talk, the banter. Nothing in comparison to the heaviness of talking about those loved ones that had died too soon. Piper found she couldn’t really bring herself to talk about her dad at all at the end of the night, Blue didn’t seem to want to mention Nate in more than passing references. She didn’t want to sour the mood, and clearly Blue didn’t want to either. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> Eventually Blue drifted off, leaving Piper awake and alone with her thoughts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was something so different about Blue when she was sleeping, she looked so much younger. Piper could almost imagine what she looked like before she was so abruptly thrown into the wasteland. Her face was probably less gaunt, no scar etched onto her face from a near-death experience. She could imagine her hair being shorter- less messy- she would probably be wearing something less skin-tight and ratty than the vault suit- </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper realized she was staring, an odd sense of shame creeping over her as she quickly looked away. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>She laid down on the couch, using the sleeping bag as a blanket. Sleep came, but her dreams were odd, nearly incomprehensible. She forgot them completely by the time she woke. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Pipe found Blue next to the door of the shop, in a shoddy office chair she had probably managed to drag into the storefront from the back. She was staring out into the street in complete awe. The street was covered by a thick layer of snow, reflecting the light of the grey sky off of it and into the shop. Piper groggily walked over to Blue, handing her a jacket she had managed to scavenge from the storage room while Blue had so excitedly run to the front of the shop. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue pulled the jacket over her shoulders, looking up at Piper with that awed look still on her face, “Piper, there’s nearly a foot of snow out there.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She was too damn tired and cold to be excited about having to slough through mountains of snow, but Blue was too damn cute to be any more than a little snarky about it., “Yep. And we get to walk through it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue’s eyebrows furrowed and she looked down at the ground, her hand tapping on her knee. She looked up after a few seconds, “What if we could just walk <em> over </em> it?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Oh boy. “What are you thinking, Blue?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m thinking,” Blue stood up from the chair, “What about snowshoes?”</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Well, Piper certainly couldn't have come up with strapping her feet to tennis rackets in order to walk over the snow. But, surprisingly, it was working. Blue really was a genius sometimes, even if she wouldn’t be willing to admit it. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The streets were completely empty,  the snow having driven everything that could’ve been a threat indoors or underground. Blue took the lead, using her pipboy map to find their way back to Diamond City. It was slow going, even with the improvised snowshoes. Piper’s legs were burning by the time they had managed to trudge more than three blocks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue was out of breath too, clearly not quite used to the amount of movement that living in the Commonwealth required these days. They eventually came to a stop at an abandoned parking garage, Blue leaning against one of the concrete pillars, her face red from windburn and exertion. Piper stopped next to her, putting her hands on her knees as she panted, trying to catch her breath.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You know, I met Nate during that blizzard,” Blue was staring out into the street, at the prints their improvised snowshoes had left in their wake, “I was probably nine or ten at the time, I had taken my bike out to go find the cat my mom gave me for Christmas.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Piper was surprised that she actually knew what most of those words meant, “Yeah?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I got lost when the blizzard hit, I could barely see more than a few feet in front of me. I ran to the nearest house, and Nate’s mom answered the door.” Blue was playing with her rings again, “Nate was right behind her, he immediately started talking my ear off as soon as I walked through the door. I actually thought he was pretty annoying at first, but he grew on me pretty fast. We ended up staying up the whole night talking about comics, and by the morning we were practically inseperable.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ah, a tale as old as time; annoying someone into loving you,” Piper said, giving Blue a small smile, “What was he like?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> Blue paused, letting out a small hum as she thought, “He was… he was the kind of person who was friends with everyone, who stood up for people when they were down. He was always getting into fights with bullies when we were kids. He knew how to make everyone’s day just a little bit brighter, and he was funny as all hell.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He sounds like a great guy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He was.” Blue nodded, clearly done talking about it for now, “We should get moving.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It took them nearly an hour, but they eventually arrived at the gates of Diamond City. Piper swore she was never going to be able to walk again with how bad her legs were cramping up. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blue pressed on the buzzer and stepped back, a few moments passed before a voice came over the intercom, “Please state your names and purpose.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was Danny, Piper let out a relieved sigh. Danny, at least, was somewhat more compassionate than the rest of Diamond City Security, “It’s Piper, and Blue. Just wondering if I have the okay to go home yet.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was a long pause, long enough to make a sense of dread creep up her spine, but it was quickly dissipated when his voice came through the intercom again, “You’re good to go. Come on in.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The sound of the gate opening was the most relieving thing she’d heard in days. Blue also looked visibly relieved, giving her a weary smile, “Let’s go home.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I thought the Commonwealth deserved to have actual seasons like it does in my game (I mod my game pretty extensively). So yeah, one of my canon divergences is literally just making the Northeast feel like the Northeast climate-wise again.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I think I spent a total of a week editing this thing until I was happy with it. I hope you all enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Arriving home was a lot less comforting once she managed to open the door. It was an absolute disaster, papers thrown around the room and half the furniture upturned. She almost didn’t even want to deal with it, not with the way her legs and back were hurting right then. Still, she had to admit that she would’ve been a <em> lot </em> more sore without the improvised snowshoes they had used to get home</p><p> </p><p>“Woah.” Blue looked extremely perplexed, her body half-turned to Piper, “It wasn’t like this yesterday…”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, that’s comforting,” Piper replied, mustering up the resolve to start wading her way into the carnage and trying to salvage some of her papers, “Jeez! Did a deathclaw get in here while we were gone?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue was already turning around in the doorway, making to leave, “I should go find Nat.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s a good idea. Maybe she can tell me what the<em> hell </em> happened here <em> . </em>” Piper was going to absolutely kill Nat if she did it. </p><p> </p><p>It took her a few minutes to pick up all the papers, and then a few more after that to get the furniture back in its original places. She collapsed on the couch as soon as she flipped it back over, letting out a relieved sigh as she sunk into it. She was never going to walk again if she could help it. </p><p> </p><p>Blue came in a moment later, Nat following behind her with a confused look on her face. </p><p> </p><p>“So, I don’t think Nat has any idea either,” Blue said, pulling Nat up next to her, one hand in a deathgrip on the back of her jacket. </p><p> </p><p>Nat was giving Blue the kind of glare that could send a deathclaw running, “I was with Beth and her parents this whole time! Why would I destroy the house anyway? I’m the one that cleans up after <em> Piper </em>-”</p><p> </p><p>Piper cleared her throat, “Good to see you too, Nat.”</p><p> </p><p>Nat had the wherewithal to look a little embarrassed, but she immediately tried to act casual, which looked even more ridiculous with Blue practically holding her by the scruff, “Piper! You’re home.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper shook her head, trying not to laugh, “Hey, kiddo.”</p><p> </p><p>“It wasn’t me.” Nat was as defiant as ever, clearly ready to fight anything that Piper said. </p><p> </p><p>She took a moment to breathe, trying to figure out how to keep the simmering frustration out of her voice, “Do you have <em> any </em>idea how the house got like that?”</p><p> </p><p>Well, mission failed. </p><p> </p><p>“None, like I was telling Blue. I was at Beth’s house the whole time. I didn’t see or do anything!” Piper had a bullshit detector a mile wide when it came to Nat, and she could tell she wasn’t lying, even if she was being defensive.</p><p> </p><p>“I believe you,” Piper turned her head to Blue, worry starting to set in, “Do you think it could’ve been-” she cut herself off, suddenly very aware that her impressionable twelve year old sister was still in Blue’s grasp. She didn’t need Nat worrying about this. She hoped Blue got the message anyway. </p><p> </p><p>Blue shrugged, her brows furrowing slightly, “Maybe.” It was clear that she was <em> probably </em> on the same train of thought. </p><p> </p><p>“Can I go to my room now?” Nat was clearly done with being held hostage by Blue, she struggled to get out of her grasp, “Come on, you guys are talking in code anyway.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue glanced over at Piper for permission and released her as soon as Piper nodded, “Yeah, you’re free to go.”</p><p> </p><p>Nat took off as soon as Blue’s hand let go of her jacket, running off to her room. She turned around right as she stopped at the doorway, “By the way, Beth’s mom is the <em> worst </em>, she wouldn’t even let us play a board game or go outside or anything.”</p><p> </p><p>“Really?” Piper raised an eyebrow, she could tell Nat was withholding something important about that certain rule. </p><p> </p><p>“Well, she said we could after we finished our homework, but we always have loads of it! It’s not fair.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper laughed, shaking her head, “Sounds like a rule we could use here.”</p><p> </p><p>Nat stuck her tongue out at her and disappeared behind the wall without responding.</p><p> </p><p>As soon as Nat was gone, Piper turned her head back to Blue, still refusing to move any more of her body than she had to. Blue looked like she was holding back a laugh. Piper caught her eye, patting the couch cushion next to her with one hand. Blue shook her head, clearly still trying to keep from laughing, a smile on her face as she walked on over to where she was seated on the couch. </p><p> </p><p>Once Blue sat down, Piper leaned in, lowering her voice enough that Nat <em> probably </em> wouldn’t overhear them, “I think it was McDonough.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue’s eyebrows raised, her smile dropping just as quickly as it appeared. She pulled her head back slightly to look at Piper, the sudden proximity of their faces making Piper’s heart skip a beat, “Alone?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper shook her head, clearing her throat and turning her head away from Blue in order to refocus and stop the sudden weird feeling in her gut, “No, I think he probably sent someone to do his dirty work for him. I dunno if you’ve noticed, but he doesn’t tend to fight his own battles.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue looked around the room, humming in thought, “Maybe it was some of the guards, the ones that kicked you out last time.”</p><p> </p><p>“Probably,” Piper nodded, “Well, I’ll deal with that later. I need to sit down for a few minutes,” She glanced up at the clock, “and then we should probably go see what Nick’s up to.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue suddenly looked a lot more somber at the reminder of her upcoming meeting with Nick, “Yeah. Okay.” </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>It was late afternoon, judging by the position of the sun, when Piper finally got enough willpower to leave the couch and follow Blue outside. They made their way across town and down one of the back alleys that led to the Valentine Detective Agency. The alleyway was a muddy mess of half-melted snow and random rotting plywood. They picked their way through the sludge, Blue making a sour face every time one of her boots slipped into the mud with a squelching sound. </p><p> </p><p>Piper hesitated when she got to the door. Now that she was here, she wasn’t entirely convinced she should be here with Blue for this. Piper had never heard Blue speak in detail about what had happened, and she didn’t really think it was her place to listen in on it. Even with Blue’s consent. </p><p> </p><p>She considered waiting outside, but Blue caught her eyes, “Piper?” </p><p> </p><p>Piper shook her head, pushing the door open without responding. She had a feeling Blue would argue with her about it if she said anything right then. She would take her leave once Nick started interviewing her. </p><p> </p><p>They made their way inside the small office that Nick worked out of. He was sitting at his desk, a pen in his skeletal hand as he went over some paperwork, probably for another case of his. Ellie was nowhere in sight, but the faint sound of the radio and a woman humming along could be heard from the upstairs. </p><p> </p><p>Nick looked up as they entered, tipping his hat as he stood up, “Good to see you two in one piece.”</p><p> </p><p>“Barely.” Piper muttered, she wouldn’t consider her legs a functional, pain-free part of her body at that moment. </p><p> </p><p>Blue looked like she was trying to suppress a laugh, shooting Piper a look before turning back to Nick,  “Good to see you too, Nick.” </p><p> </p><p>Nick seemed to miss their little exchange, but Piper knew better, “Well, I’m assuming you didn’t come here for a casual chat, if our conversation yesterday was anything to go by. Take a seat.” He gestured to the chair in front of his desk.</p><p> </p><p>Blue hesitated before sitting down, her posture anything but comfortable. Piper stood back against the wall, crossing her arms and trying to figure out a graceful exit. </p><p> </p><p>““Now, when you’re trying to find a murderer, the devil is in the details. I need you to tell me everything you remember, no matter how…. painful it may be.”</p><p> </p><p>The air in the room suddenly felt a good ten degrees cooler. Blue shifted around in her seat, her silence lasting long enough that even Nick looked slightly uncomfortable. </p><p> </p><p>It felt wrong for her to be there for this, not when she had routinely failed to open up to Blue. Piper finally managed to make a move to leave, right when Blue was looking like she was about to start speaking. </p><p> </p><p>Blue turned her head, giving her an inquisitive look, Piper waved her off, “I’m gonna go smoke. Give you guys some room to talk.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue nodded, her apparent willingness to speak from just a second ago gone in a flash.</p><p> </p><p>Piper turned and left, ignoring the look Nick was giving her in favor of pulling a lighter and a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket as she pushed her way out the door. She lit the cigarette as she stepped into the alleyway, firmly planting her feet on a piece of rotting plywood to avoid sinking into the gross mixture of dirt and snow and god-knows-what-else. </p><p> </p><p> It wasn’t her place to overhear such a painful experience, not when she had done nothing to earn the right to stand there and hear it. Nick was an investigator, it was his job to know this stuff. She was just a snoop. Her time was better spent out here, watching the birds that hopped overhead as she smoked, not listening in on something that her friend had only confessed to her out of a dire moment of pain.</p><p> </p><p>She was halfway through her cigarette when a group of people walked past her little island of plywood. One of them gave her a once-over, his sunglasses hiding his eyes . The rest of the group ignored her, grouping up behind the guy as he passed by her. They were out of sight within a few seconds, but Piper couldn’t help the unsettled feeling bubbling its way up in her gut.</p><p> </p><p>She reached back in her jacket, searching for the newspaper she had found in that garage. Maybe an attempt at solving it would help move the time along quicker, and keep her mind occupied so she didn’t have to think so hard about certain things.</p><p> </p><p>She flipped the paper around until it was upright, staring blankly at the charcoal-smudged letters that Blue was able to half-decode at a glance. </p><p> </p><p>“Start at..” she mumbled to herself, trying to piece together how each letter fit into that. </p><p> </p><p>It took her a few moments, but she started to notice how the letters <em> weren’t </em>random, and she tried to recall her ABCs. The first two words became clearer the longer she looked. Each letter corresponded with a letter three places lower on the alphabet. But once she got to where Blue left off, trying to do that pattern made the words go back to gibberish. </p><p> </p><p>She tried to figure out the code in her head for a few more minutes, before eventually giving up and shoving the paper back into her jacket with a frustrated sigh. She was going to need to sit down with a pen and a couple scraps of paper to work that one out. </p><p> </p><p>She lit up another cigarette right as she heard the door of Nick’s office open behind her. She turned her head and looked over her shoulder, meeting eyes with Nick. Blue was nowhere in sight.</p><p> </p><p>Nick nodded to her as he walked out into the alley, stepping onto another piece of plywood across the way from her. He lit up his own cigarette and leaned up against the wall of the alley.</p><p> </p><p>Piper took a moment to exhale the smoke from her lungs, a question already on her lips, “How’d it go?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick dropped the hand holding his cigarette, the sudden movement making ashes fall from it and into the mud, “Well, I think we might have a suspect. I told her to take a few moments to calm down. I thought I’d come out here and join you for a smoke in the meantime.” </p><p> </p><p>“Is she okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“She said as much, and I’m inclined to believe her. She didn’t seem ready to get up and go find the suspect yet, either way.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who are you thinking?”</p><p> </p><p>“The suspect?” Nick questioned, pausing to give Piper time to nod her answer, “Well, remember that merc you were looking into a few months ago? The bald guy with the scar?”</p><p> </p><p>“Kellogg?” Piper paused, “Do you think it could’ve happened after he skipped town?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick took another puff of his cigarette, his glowing yellow eyes staring up at the smoke, “It could have happened before he ever settled down here in the first place. There’s no way to know for sure. I’m not even fully certain it is him yet, we need to figure out a way into his old house to find evidence.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper turned from her spot in the alleyway, looking back at the door of Nick’s office, “I should probably check up on Blue. We’ll come meet you up at the old house soon.”</p><p> </p><p>Nick grunted in response, lifting his cigarette to his lips.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p> Blue was sitting in the chair, her back facing the doorway as Piper peaked in. Her head was down, her hands in her lap. Her hair was a mess, like she had been grabbing at it. Her shoulders and back held a deep tension, obvious even under her jumpsuit. Piper stepped in the room, carefully closing the door behind her. Ellie was still singing somewhere upstairs. </p><p> </p><p>Piper made her steps purposefully heavy, not that she really needed to. Blue had reacted as soon as she closed the door. <em> Keen ears </em> , she remembered <em> . </em>It was just a twitch of her shoulder, but Piper knew she was tuned in to her now. </p><p> </p><p>Piper walked up behind her, tentatively resting a hand on her shoulder, “How’re you holding up, Blue?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m holding.” Blue leaned into her touch, lolling her head back until she was staring up at her. Piper had to resist the urge to brush her hair out of her face, “Nick said he was going out to talk to you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, we talked,” Piper traced the lines of her face with her eyes, she looked exhausted, “He told me about Kellogg.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue immediately tensed up, the muscle in her jaw jumping, “Yeah, him.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper rested her left hand on her other shoulder, “ We’ll find the bastard. I promise.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue’s shoulders relaxed, albeit minutely, “You didn’t have to go outside for the whole thing.”</p><p> </p><p>“It wasn’t my place, Blue. I’m always butting into places I don’t belong, and I didn’t want to do that to you,”  Well, she was always butting into other people’s business when it was for the newspaper. Or anyone who’d ever been her friend. It didn’t exactly make people want to get close to her, she’d be damned if she did the same thing to Blue. </p><p> </p><p>“You don’t.” Blue seemed indignant, her head snapping forward as she pushed out of the chair, turning to face her, “In fact, you’ve never done that to me or to anyone around me since I’ve known you.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll see,” She didn’t want to argue with her about it, so she changed the subject, “I told Nick we’d meet him at Kellogg’s house. Let’s get going.”</p><p> </p><p>She turned and walked towards the door, Blue pausing for a second before following behind her. She could practically hear the gears turning in Blue’s head, frustration clear in even just the sound of her footsteps. That particular conversation obviously wasn’t over, but they had bigger things to focus on right then.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>It was edging towards night by the time they ascended the stairs up to where Kellogg’s old house was. Walking up the stairs was horrible, Piper could feel her muscles screaming in protest with each step. Blue didn’t look like her legs were feeling much better, but she hid her discomfort better than Piper ever could… Not that Piper was really trying; it was a steady stream of expletives from her, all the way up to the top of the steps. </p><p> </p><p>Nick waved at them from the door, his tall frame bent down at eye-level with the lock. He stood up straight as they approached, “This thing is locked up tight as far as I can tell. But I’ve always been better with a computer than a lockpick.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper was already rummaging around her pockets for a bobby pin, “I’ll take a shot.”</p><p> </p><p>And take a shot she did. After the fifth broken bobby pin, she gave up with a huff, making room for Blue to take her own shot at the thing. No matter how hard they tried, none of them could manage to pick the lock of Kellogg’s old home. Blue sat down in front of the door, her shoulders slumped in defeat. Piper kneeled in front of her, placing a hand on her shoulder and meeting her eyes. </p><p> </p><p>“We’ll get this, Blue.” She gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, “That bastard is not getting away.”</p><p> </p><p>“He already did.” </p><p> </p><p>“That doesn’t mean we can’t track him down.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nobody has ever found the Institute, according to you. What if he went there?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue had a point, but Piper wasn’t going to let Blue go down that road, “Then we’ll find it, alright?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue nodded, clearly not believing her in the slightest, but she still managed to smile, “You really believe that, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper smiled back, giving Blue a pat on the shoulder before standing up and offering her a hand, “Sometimes believing in something is all you have left. Now, come on.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue took her hand and hoisted herself up onto her feet, “Thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>Nick was leaning up against the railing, staring out over the darkening city, “Well, I guess we’ll need to find a key.” He pointed towards the upper stands, at the place that Piper was all but banned from, “That up there is the mayor’s office and the city council chambers. You could ask around there, they have a copy of the key to nearly every residence in the city.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em> Nearly, </em>” Piper emphasized. She had never given a copy of her keys to the city. Not that it had stopped them when push came to shove, apparently. </p><p> </p><p>Blue looked over to her, but Piper held up her hand, “I’m not gonna be able to help you out on this one, Blue. Mayor Mcdonough won’t even let me past the lobby on a good day. I’ll stay here with Nick and try to figure out the lock.”</p><p> </p><p>It was <em> partially </em> true, she had been essentially banned from the mayor’s office for a while now. The idea of having to walk all the way across town, just to get turned away anyway, also didn’t sound particularly appealing with the way her legs felt. Blue gave her a short nod, turning and walking off back down the stairs. </p><p> </p><p>Nick eyed Piper as she leaned against the railing next to him, but she just continued staring out over the white-topped houses and the muddy market.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, Nick’s eyes on the side of her face got to her enough to say something, “Got something to say, Nick?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick let out a short laugh, “I’m just glad to see you making new friends.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure.”</p><p> </p><p>Nick shrugged, pulling a cigarette out of his trench coat and lighting it, “She trusts you.”</p><p> </p><p>“And?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick passed his cigarette over to her, “Want a drag?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper took the cigarette and took a long draw of it. She knew she wasn’t going to get more out of Nick than he was willing to give her. But that unspoken question still hung around in her head;</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Why don’t you trust her judgement? </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nick’s unspoken question still weighed heavily on her mind by the time Blue came back with the key, red-faced and clearly upset from her attempts to get it from the mayor. She barely spoke as they filed into Kellogg’s old house to search for evidence, but Piper was still too preoccupied to ask her what happened. </p><p> </p><p>Ever since she was sixteen and her dad died, it had been one thing after another. A string of letdowns and mistakes made over and over again until she learned that <em> nobody likes someone who is always looking to get into everyone else’s business </em> . Friendships that grew cold and distant because of her nosey nature, lovers that left because <em> you’re just too much to handle </em>. Her reputation alone made most people take a wide berth around her whenever she was in town nowadays. </p><p> </p><p>Sure, Nick put up with her overstepping boundaries, her incessant questions. But Nick was different; he was an old investigator, a fellow outcast that still commanded the respect of a city deathly afraid of his kind. He was used to the questions; the odd, prodding way Piper chose to try and understand people when she was a teenager and still hadn’t fully grown out of as an adult. He reminded her so much of her dad, and maybe that’s why she latched onto him so hard when she met him all those years ago. </p><p> </p><p>But Piper knew that not everyone was like that; in fact, most people were really just looking out for themselves, looking to get something out of someone. Friendships were somewhat transactional, even the best ones, and Piper always asked for too much in return for too little. She couldn’t bear the thought of driving away Blue with that, too. So she curbed the questions, the prodding, she kept her distance but still offered her help. She wasn’t going to fuck up again, if she could help it. </p><p> </p><p>There was a loud bang from across the room. Piper blinked and looked up from the desk fan she had been studying rather intensely. Blue stood next to a shelf, her eyebrows in a near-permanent furrow as she looked around at the walls and the desk in the middle of the room. Her fist was firmly against the side of the shelf, she had clearly punched it out of frustration. </p><p> </p><p>They hadn’t found anything so far, not that Piper was being too much of a help at that moment. </p><p> </p><p>“Goddamn it.” Blue muttered, her voice raising as she continued on, “That pain-in-the-ass made me <em> steal </em> the key from him, and for what? There’s nothing here!”</p><p> </p><p>Piper didn’t know what to say, Blue’s hands were shaking as she walked past her. <em> Well, that explains why she looked so upset earlier. </em> She had never seen her just lose her temper like that before, though.</p><p> </p><p>Blue walked over to the desk, resting her palms against it while she let out a shaky breath. Her shoulders relaxed slightly, the obvious tension in her neck lessening just a bit. </p><p> </p><p>“Blue-” Blue held up a finger, <em> give me a moment </em>.</p><p> </p><p>Blue took in another deep breath, closing her eyes. She still looked tense when she opened them again, “Sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper wanted to say <em> something </em>, offer some kind hope for Blue, but it would be hollow at this point. There really was nothing here, not from where she was standing.</p><p> </p><p>Unless- Piper stared at the desk Blue was leaning up against. There was a wire snaking up the back of it and disappearing into a hole in the side, it was barely visible in the shadow cast by the overhead light, “Blue, check under the desk.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue shot her a questioning look, she simply nodded in return and pointed at the desk she was leaning up against. Both of her eyebrows raised, Blue quickly pushed back from the desk, ducking to look underneath. She pressed on something, the click obvious from across the room, and there was a loud creaking noise from the wall next to Piper. Blue let out a short, disbelieving laugh, the sound hollow against the underside of the desk.</p><p> </p><p>Piper turned and looked in the new side room they had just uncovered, the walls were lined with enough ammo and food to supply a family for at least a month straight. There was a chair in the middle of the room, a table next to it held an ashtray; some old, half-burned cigars sitting in it. </p><p> </p><p>A secret room, of <em> course </em> a shady merc like Kellogg had a secret room.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you find something?” Nick’s voice came from the upstairs area.</p><p> </p><p>Blue reemerged from under the desk, looking up towards the top of the stairs, “Yeah, down here!”</p><p> </p><p>Nick came back down the stairs, looking over at the new hole in the wall, “Well, would you look at that.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper looked back over at Blue, who had stood up again and was making her way over to her. She stopped right next to her, close enough that Piper could practically feel the warmth radiating off of her. Blue glanced over into the room and then back at her, a lopsided smile appearing on her face and making the scar on her cheek crinkle up, “Good eye.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper felt a blush creep up her cheeks, the sudden closeness of Blue and the way she was looking at her right then was making her heart beat into her throat. She ducked her head to one side, an uncharacteristic shyness overtaking her, “Thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue nodded, that grin quickly disappearing as she walked off to go in the room, leaving Piper to stand there, suddenly feeling like a flustered idiot. </p><p> </p><p><em> What the hell just got into me? </em> </p><p> </p><p>She watched Blue move around the room, the intense look of concentration on her face making her profile a lot harsher than it usually was. She felt her stomach drop, <em> no. </em> She tried to push whatever she was feeling to the side, her heart still beating hard in her chest. She didn’t need to analyze it any deeper, she didn’t want to. Blue was her <em> friend </em>. That was it.</p><p> </p><p>Nick and Blue didn’t find any clues to Kellogg’s whereabouts, but Blue picked up one of the cigars- one that could only really belong to Kellogg. She turned to Nick, her voice barely loud enough for Piper to hear from the main room, “Could we track him using the cigars?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick took the cigar from her, turning it over in his skeletal hand, “San Francisco Sunlights. A unique brand. We wouldn’t be able to use this, of course. Unless you happen to know someone or something that can track his scent.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue took the cigar back from him, pocketing it in her jacket, “I might, actually.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we can talk about it in the morning. I don’t need to sleep, but you two do. Finding a professional murderer while sleep deprived wouldn’t end well for any of us.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s true,” Blue nodded, “We’ll meet you back at your office around ten.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Blue looked a million miles away once they left Kellogg’s house, clearly deep in thought as she fiddled with the cigar in her jacket pocket. Piper was also barely in the moment, too busy focusing on the ground in front of her while she mulled over the fact that she seemed suddenly unable to act like a normal person around Blue. Every accidental brush of their hands as they made their way home side by side made her feel like she had thunder trapped in her chest. <em> Fuck</em>. </p><p> </p><p>She tried to focus on the soreness in her calves as she purposefully fell a step behind Blue, willing the pain and distance to distract her from the beat of her heart against her ribcage and the panicked scrambling of her mind to rationalize what just happened. </p><p> </p><p>She was clearly just worried about her, and was obviously taking on some of her more negative feelings. That <em> had </em> to be it, it couldn’t be anything else. She didn’t want it to be anything else. Still, she couldn’t even believe her own bullshit. She knew what it was, not that she’d ever admit it. </p><p> </p><p>She barely got a handle on herself by the time they got back to the house, her hands shaking a bit as she walked ahead and opened the door, holding it open for Blue. </p><p> </p><p>Blue seemed to notice her discomfort the moment they were less than three feet apart. She became much more reserved once she stepped past her and into the living room, not even sparing Piper a glance as she retreated to the couch and pulled a book out of her backpack. It was a clear sign she didn’t want to talk right then, not that Piper was even sure she wanted to either. She wouldn’t even know what to say.</p><p> </p><p>She walked past Blue, heading up the stairs and going into her room. She shut the door squarely behind her, sliding down the wall next to it and burying her face in her hands. </p><p> </p><p>She needed to get a handle on herself, she knew that. Blue needed her to help solve this whole mess with Kellogg, not to mention the whole break-in issue, and here Piper was; locking herself in her room and unable to be a normal person for five fucking seconds. It was pathetic, she felt pathetic. </p><p> </p><p>Piper breathed in, letting the air out between her teeth as she stood up and walked over to her desk. She didn’t need to think about this, she needed something to do. She sat down, pulling out the notes she took from her month in Sanctuary out of her pocket. </p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t published a paper in over a month, and running some non-controversial papers about the humble beginnings of the Minutemen rising from the ashes of their past would probably keep her somewhat safe from any more break-ins. Not to mention that it would provide the money for the missed payments that were starting to stack up since she had been gone for over a month. She desperately needed to be able to just be home without the looming threat of getting kicked out of her own house hanging over her on top of everything else going on. Whether it be due to missed housing payments, or McDonough.</p><p> </p><p>Even if it wasn’t nearly as dire as finding a dangerous mercenary that had murdered her friend’s husband (<em> husband </em>, she had to remember that), or trying to figure out who broke into her house, it needed to get done. Not that it was very difficult to deduce who broke in, not from the way Diamond City Security had treated her. Still, she was going to need to find indisputable proof that it was the Mayor and DCS that messed with everything, and that was going to be almost as difficult as tracking a killer through the snowy wastes.</p><p> </p><p>She shook her head, trying to refocus back on the task at hand. She wasn’t going to solve any of these things tonight, no matter how much she wished she could. Really, a distraction seemed both welcome and necessary at that point, for multiple reasons. And writing had always been an escape for her.</p><p> </p><p>She grabbed another writing pad out of her desk, setting it down next to the note pad that she had used in Sanctuary. Now all she had to do was cut the bad parts in the new draft and craft a couple articles. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Piper emerged from her room two hours later, her hand cramping and her craving for some coffee outweighing her will to keep writing and ignoring all the things pressing on her at the moment. </p><p> </p><p>It was deathly silent downstairs, Nat already clearly asleep. Blue was sitting on the couch, her head down as she calmly inspected one of her pistols. She looked up after a moment, staring at the wall across from her as she lifted the pistol up and aimed. She dropped her arm after a second, letting out a ragged breath as she laid the gun in her lap. </p><p> </p><p>Piper carefully descended the stairs, trying to keep her footsteps loud enough to let Blue know she was there, but quiet enough to not wake Nat in her room. Blue snapped out of whatever she was thinking about when Piper started walking, her eyelids fluttering and her shoulders rising and falling as she took in a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, she looked almost bored, but Piper knew better than that at this point.</p><p> </p><p>Piper stopped on the bottom step, watching the way Blue kept taking those deep breaths, her eyes never really moving from the coffee table to look at her. She didn’t look like she was considering anything rash at that moment. Still, Piper couldn’t stop the sudden hammer of her heart against her ribcage, that cold spike of fear shooting up her spine as Blue calmly set her pistol on the coffee table.</p><p> </p><p>Piper’s preoccupation over her feelings and stress, as well as her desperate need for some coffee, were entirely forgotten in the uneasy silence of the room. Her voice was barely above a whisper when she spoke, but it felt loud even to her, “Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue looked up and over at her, the small tremor of her hands showing that she was nowhere near neutral nor bored at that moment. She honestly looked scared when she met Piper’s eyes, but that small glimpse of her emotions was quickly shut behind that indifferent mask not so far removed from the one she had the first time Piper came downstairs to see her sitting there on that couch. </p><p> </p><p>Piper made her way over to the living room, sitting down on one of the chairs off to the side of where Blue was, “Hey, what’s wrong?”</p><p> </p><p>There was a long pause, Blue fiddling with the end of her jacket, “I-,” A slow blink, a small exhale that sounded more like a surrender than anything, “I’m sorry for losing my temper earlier, I didn’t mean to scare you.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper blinked, <em> well </em> that wasn’t what she expected to hear, not when that wasn’t even what she was really asking about, anyway, “You didn’t-”</p><p> </p><p>“You barely looked at me after we left Kellogg’s house.” It was barely a whisper, almost quiet enough that Piper talked over it. It broke her heart.</p><p> </p><p>“I- No, Blue.” Piper didn’t really know what to say as she tried to shift gears into the topic at hand. Her brain was now somewhere between worrying about the mental state of her friend and thinking too hard about that moment in Kellogg’s house. She didn’t want to explain what happened back there, not when she didn’t even fully understand it herself. The parts that she did understand didn’t make her want to explain it more. “It’s been a stressful day; you didn’t scare me.” </p><p> </p><p>Blue didn’t seem to believe her, and Piper didn’t blame her. She wanted to reach out, touch her, reassure her she wasn’t scared or angry with her for losing her cool.  But she’d have to explain what was actually going on at that moment, and she couldn’t really do that either. </p><p> </p><p> Instead she stood up, pointing her thumb towards the kitchen area, “Do you want anything? I’m making some coffee.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue seemed a little taken aback, but she nodded, “Coffee sounds good.”</p><p> </p><p>Well, this wasn’t going to solve anything, but it was a start. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>She and Blue had stayed up talking about nothing of any real substance. Worry still ate at her bones; something was <em> clearly, clearly </em>off with Blue, something that had nothing to do with her as far as she could tell. Blue didn’t seem to want to talk about it, though. She had barely touched her coffee, contrasting against Piper who had probably downed about three cups of the stuff. Sipping on it was more a nervous habit than anything, but now she really wasn’t going to be sleeping well tonight. </p><p> </p><p>It was late by the time Piper retired upstairs again, leaving Blue to get ready for bed. She sat down at the desk, taking off her hat and pushing her hair back behind her ears as she stared at the mess of scribbles on her field notes and the slightly neater writing on her fresh notepad. She would eventually type out all the articles on her old cranker of a computer, but she vehemently hated trying to edit or revise anything on it. Moving the insertion cursor was a herculean task for the ancient piece of junk. </p><p> </p><p>She managed to get in a good hour of work, trying to drown out the noise of her brain overthinking everything all at once. It didn’t really work as well as it had earlier, but she managed to finish up almost all of her first papers-worth of articles before she heard a quiet knock on the door. She set down her pencil, half-turning in her chair while she stretched out her hand to get rid of the soreness. </p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t fully paying attention, her mind still on the article she was working on, “Door’s open!”</p><p> </p><p>The door opened gently, Blue popping her head through, “Am I interrupting you?”</p><p> </p><p><em> Welp. </em> There went her little bubble of productivity. Piper sat back, swiveling her chair around with one foot, “You’re fine, Blue. What’s up?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue looked exhausted, clearly not as much of a night owl as Piper could be when she was home. She wore one of those old knit sweaters Piper kept in storage, a pair of too-big long johns practically hanging off of her hips. There were dark bags under her eyes, her posture combined with the way-too-large clothing made her look small. “I can’t sleep and... I- I don’t really want to be alone with myself right now.”</p><p> </p><p>That sent a spike of anxiety up her spine, but she knew she needed to finish up the last of her work before she could really try and ask Blue what was really going on in that head of hers, “Well, watching me write won’t be very interesting. But, if you wanna sit down and do something more interesting, the bed’s free.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue raised an eyebrow, a wry grin replacing the exhaustion and haggard vulnerability in her expression. She didn’t respond verbally, but it was clear she found something Piper said amusing, amusing enough to make that sparkle come back in her eye-</p><p> </p><p>She felt her heart stop for a second, the implications of what she just said making her turn bright red, “I mean- listen to music or something! I won’t- I’m just gonna- I’m gonna work on this.”</p><p> </p><p>She turned around abruptly, Blue’s quiet laugh making her want to sink further into her jacket and disappear. She heard Blue walk across her bedroom, each passing second of silence making her want to disappear even more. She stared blankly at the article she was writing, her grip on her pen tightening until her knuckles were white. After what felt like hours, the creak of the bed frame announced that Blue had finally sat down. The radio playing from Blue’s Pipboy broke the prolonged silence, the soft sound finally giving her enough wherewithal to <em> relax </em>. </p><p> </p><p>She read over what she had written before Blue walked in, trying to get her mind back on topic. It was exceedingly difficult, but she eventually managed to rein her brain in enough to actually focus on the damn thing. <em> Just one more article, then I’ll talk to her </em>. Pen to paper, she started writing again.</p><p> </p><p>It took her a good twenty minutes, her hand cramping again and her energy finally starting to run out as she wrote down the last word. She turned to look over at Blue; she was staring up at the ceiling, her arms behind her head.  Her expression was neutral, devoid of any hint of what she was thinking about. Her leg was swinging off the side of the bed. She looked more at peace than she had when Piper had walked in on her downstairs earlier, pensiveness much more apparent than any kind of sorrow. Piper didn’t really have the heart to tell Blue that she needed to sleep, not while she looked so peaceful, but she had apparently already caught Blue’s eye.</p><p> </p><p>Blue turned her head to look at her, her eyes softer than they were a moment ago, “Hey.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper swiveled her chair towards Blue, “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt… whatever you were doing.”</p><p> </p><p>“You didn’t,” Blue glanced towards her desk and then back at her, “You tired?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper hesitated, but a yawn interrupted her shaking her head no, “A little bit.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue shook her head, the corners of her eyes crinkling up, she chuckled, “Convincing.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper stood up from her desk, reorganizing some of the papers before turning back to Blue, who had sat up and had her feet on the ground again, “Do you wanna talk about what’s going on?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue blinked, clearly a little taken aback and trying to figure something out, “Which part?”</p><p> </p><p>Well, now was her time to prod, even as it made her stomach tie itself up in a knot, “All of it, if that's okay. I’m worried, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue stilled, her eyes drifting to the floor, “I- I don’t think I can right now.”</p><p> </p><p>She had her chance to push and she fucked it up. She wasn’t going to force Blue to talk about anything she didn’t want to at this point. She’d be damned if she didn’t offer a shoulder to one of her only friends, though, “You don’t have to, I just wanted to offer.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” Blue seemed hesitant, perched on the side of the bed, clearly working through something in her mind, “I should probably go. Let you sleep.”</p><p> </p><p>Everything about her posture and her expression made that knot of worry tie itself tighter in the base of Piper’s stomach. “No- it’s fine, you can stay, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue paused, her hands closing around the side of the sheets as she stared at her, her eyebrows furrowing slightly, “Are you sure?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper really didn’t think this through, but she nodded, “Yeah, I’ll- I’ll take the floor.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue raised both her eyebrows, letting out a skeptical hum, “I’m not going to steal your bed like that. It’s <em> freezing </em> in here, Piper.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who said it’s stealing? I’m giving it up willingly, and I’m not <em> that </em>cold.” Blue kept looking at her in disbelief, and Piper’s mouth moved before her brain could really catch up with it, “Fine, we could share, if that’ll make you feel any better.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue looked about as surprised as Piper felt about her own words, but the look quickly faded into her thinking face. She nodded after a few moments of consideration, setting her Pipboy on the rickety nightstand that Piper kept near the bed, “I’m fine with that if you are.”</p><p> </p><p>Well, <em> fine </em> wasn’t the word she would use to describe the sudden anxiety winding around her throat. She didn’t dare to speak, just giving a firm nod while taking off her dad’s jacket and kicking off her boots. It really <em> was </em>freezing in here, now that she was out of the warmth of the jacket. </p><p> </p><p>Blue was still frozen in place, her eyes analyzing Piper with some amount of uncertainty, seemingly waiting for her to tell her she was just kidding. Piper pushed down her own uncertainty and made her way towards the bed, pulling on the cord to shut off the light as she passed under it. That seemed to snap Blue out of it, the shifting of the sheets and creaking of the springs suggesting that she was getting back in the bed rather than leaving it. </p><p> </p><p>Piper hesitated for a split second before sitting down on the edge of the bed. She felt Blue’s hand come up next to her, a part of the sheet moving along with it. She took the edge of the sheet from her, pulling it over herself as she laid down on her side, mindful to keep a good amount of space between their bodies as she tried her best to get comfortable. Blue seemed about as stiff as she felt, even her breathing sounded shallow. </p><p> </p><p>She forced herself to take a deep breath in, <em> I did this all the time with my friends as a kid, calm down.  </em></p><p> </p><p>She heard Blue move next to her, obviously just as uncertain of what the boundaries were when they were sharing a bed. She eventually seemed to figure out a comfortable position, and the movement ceased. A few seconds later, she heard her breathing slow. <em> Well, </em>at least Blue was able to sleep. </p><p> </p><p>And she wasn’t alone with herself, that was the most important part.</p><p> </p><p>Piper laid there, wide awake, staring at Blue’s Pipboy on the nightstand, watching as the clock passed 3am. Trying to relax took a very concentrated effort, but she finally felt like she could breathe again after a few minutes. She <em> had </em> done this a million times with traveling partners and friends; sharing a bed was just part of the gig most of the time. <em> This is no different.  </em></p><p> </p><p>She kept repeating that mantra in her head as she drifted off to sleep, the last thing she saw was the clock blinking 3:55am.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Waking up in the morning was always unpleasant for her, and completely inevitable no matter how hard she tried. Her eyes didn’t want to open but the need to open them bugged her all the same. Senses came back one by one, until she could make sense of her limbs and the distinct smell of tobacco that never really left the air in her room. She was flat on her back, one arm trapped under a warm body that had curled into her side during the night. Blue’s face was pressed into her neck, her arm thrown loosely over Piper’s waist, her breathing still slow and deep as she continued on sleeping. Piper was left half awake, the closeness drawing her half-asleep mind into a false sense of serenity. It was the first time she felt like she actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>slept</span>
  </em>
  <span> for once, and she almost fell back asleep right then. But, of course, her brain had to go ahead and ruin it.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I wonder if this is how she held Nate at night...</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>That thought jolted her </span>
  <em>
    <span>wide</span>
  </em>
  <span> awake, her eyes snapping open so she was stuck staring at the corrugated metal ceiling. She didn’t dare move her arm from under Blue, the fear of her waking up greater than the sudden weird pit in her stomach and the thump of her heart against her ribs. She could practically feel every strand of Blue’s hair as it tickled her neck and face, the distinct heat and weight of her hand where it curled half on her stomach, half on her side… The press of her body against her...</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span> Yeah, she wasn’t going to be falling back asleep at that point.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> She stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours, too nervous to take more than a shallow breath. She didn’t know if Blue would say anything when she woke up, if she’d feel any certain way about it. But she couldn’t figure out which possible reaction would make her feel worse at that point.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually she felt Blue stir next to her; a deep breath in as she pressed her face deeper into her shoulder, her arm tightening around her waist as she let out a dismayed groan. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Right,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Blue was never really a graceful morning person, not from what Piper had seen. She was practically nonverbal for the first few minutes out of the depths of sleep, unfocused and somewhere far off until her wits came back enough that Piper could watch that veil of confusion lift and leave behind subdued acceptance in her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>This time was no different, really. Except that she couldn’t see it happen in her eyes. But she could feel it in the sudden tense tentativeness of her body, the way her arm suddenly loosened from her waist. Uncertainty was thick in the air, but she couldn’t honestly tell on whose part anymore. She felt that arm leave her side and stretch up towards the ceiling, Blue rolling on her back with an air of practiced casualness. Piper continued feigning sleep for a few more moments, not wanting Blue to realize she had been awake and aware for a while at that point, if just to spare them both the awkward conversation.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper let out a yawn after a few moments passed, stretching her arms over her head in an attempt to pretend that she was just waking up. She sat up from the bed, rubbing her eyes as she set her feet on the floorboards. She heard Blue shift behind her, felt her eyes on her back as she sat on the edge of the bed, trying to will herself to get up and out into the bitter cold of her room.   </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She mustered up the will to stand up from the warmth of the blankets, the room heavy with silence. Piper walked swiftly over to her desk, throwing her coat on before the cold could really sink in. It was stupid of her to not load up the stove the night before, but she wasn’t exactly in her right mind at the time. Anyway, going downstairs and starting the stove would be a good excuse to get out of the room and away from Blue. She didn’t trust herself to be able to talk for long without saying something stupid. Still, leaving without saying anything would probably make Blue worry. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She settled for a quick glance over her shoulder, noticing that Blue was now sitting up, her eyes squinted in concentration as she stared at her, but relaxing when she caught her eye. Piper spoke more to the wall than directly to Blue, her words sounding almost strangled as she forced herself to try and relax,  “Cold, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“A little bit.” was the response, followed by a small chuckle, “If it’s alright with you, I’m going to stay right here where it’s warm.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue’s casual response juxtaposed against the intensity in her eyes was both unnerving and calming. Piper breathed in, closing her eyes as she tried to remember how to be a normal person, “Well, I’m gonna go start the stove up and make some breakfast. You want anything?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There was a small pause, “A jacket- not to eat, obviously. But hey, I’ve had worse.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper laughed, finally feeling her shoulders relax, “That’s it?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ask me again when I’m warmer.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper shook her head, a smile pulling on the corners of her mouth and she turned to the door and left.  She could see her breath when she walked down into the living room and through the kitchen area to the stove. She had to be honest, winter was never her favorite season, even if the snow could be beautiful. She always preferred the fall, when it was dry and still warm enough to think most days. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span> She opened the heavy iron door of the stove and threw in a log from the pile she kept next to it, placing a crumpled up newspaper on top of it and lighting it with a match that she had managed to find in one of her coat pockets.  Piper stood back from the stove and breathed a sigh of relief as the warmth flooded over her. The rest of the kitchen warmed up considerably, too, after a few minutes and a lot more fuel.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She stood there for a few minutes longer once she was done, soaking in the warmth before she finally willed herself to find something to cook. She turned to the lockers they used as food storage, rummaging through it until she found a cloth pack of dried noodles. She turned back to the stove once she found a few more ingredients, taking one of the pots off the wall and setting in the sink. She uncapped the hose that hung through a hole in the wall; the only one that supplied the house with clean water. It was barely a trickle, thanks to the most likely still-frozen water trapped further down it, but she managed to get enough out of it to fill up the pot halfway before she set it on the stovetop to slowly start boiling. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>A watched pot never boils, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she’d heard that saying a million times growing up from her dad. It was a metaphor, of course, because she had always been impatient and pushy. But she couldn’t bring herself to do anything else but stand there and stare at the water, her mind wandering</span>
  <em>
    <span>. </span>
  </em>
  <span>First it was just about various articles she was trying to piece out, but eventually her thoughts drifted to Blue. She was still a little worried about her, but she seemed to be in better spirits that morning; no look in her eyes suggesting that she still needed to be with someone rather than alone. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Still, she couldn’t shake the picture of just how </span>
  <em>
    <span>angry</span>
  </em>
  <span> Blue looked whenever Kellogg came up. But it wasn’t just anger, it was pure hatred, grief too, and that did strange things to people. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going on in that head of hers. She was reminded of just how </span>
  <em>
    <span>little </span>
  </em>
  <span>she knew about Blue at that point, a stranger staying in her house and sharing her space, but a stranger nonetheless. Two months was never enough time to get to know someone with a complicated past, and god knew that they both had </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>complicated pasts. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But there was </span>
  <em>
    <span>something </span>
  </em>
  <span>about her, something that put Piper at ease to some extent. Maybe it was the fact that Blue didn’t have the same context that made everyone else so keen to avoid or try to kill her. Maybe it was because Blue was the first new person she’d met in a while that had honest-to-god </span>
  <em>
    <span>morals</span>
  </em>
  <span> that extended beyond self-interest. Maybe it was just her attraction speaking for her, and there was nothing special about Blue besides the fact that she was a walking time capsule- </span>
  <em>
    <span>Well, that’s pretty damn special</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Blue…</span>
  </em>
  <span> that reminded her. She shook her head to clear it and walked into the living room, opening an old wardrobe she kept near the front door for all the excess clothing she had managed to collect over the two years they’d been living there. She pulled down a blue woolen jacket off one of the hangers, holding it between her hands as she checked it over for holes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course</span>
  </em>
  <span> it was blue. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She took it upstairs, opening and closing the door behind her quietly. Blue was laying down in the bed, only the top half of her face visible from the blankets she had wrapped around herself. Piper had to suppress a smile at the sight. Even with her trying desperately to fight her heart on this one, she had to admit that Blue was </span>
  <em>
    <span>adorable</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Jacket for you,” She said it in a sing-song voice as she tossed the jacket across the room, where it landed squarely on Blue’s side, “I’m making some noodles, do you want any?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue groaned, her eyes closing for a long minute before opening again with a small nod. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Sitting down for breakfast was significantly more awkward than any of their interactions that morning, apart from when she woke up to find Blue curled up next to her. Seeing Blue sitting in the living room instead of half-hidden in her bed made her already-lacking ability to cope with her sudden feelings a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lot </span>
  </em>
  <span>more difficult than when she could just pretend, even for a second, that things were normal. Blue seemed to pick up on the sudden change in the air, her head ducked to one side and never really looking at her when Piper looked up from her bowl. She could tell Blue was staring when she wasn’t looking, trying to puzzle out something in that head of hers.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually Blue spoke up, “I’m going to go see Nick once I’m done, do you want to come with me?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper stared at her bowl, swirling the noodles around in the broth with her chopsticks, “Sure thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue was silent for a few more seconds, staring at her while she continued looking at her bowl, “Piper?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s going on with you?” </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing,” It was an automatic response, like all the times she got caught doing something she shouldn’t have when she was a kid, “I’m alright, Blue, I swear.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue sighed before finally looking away and standing up from the table, “Alright. I’m gonna go get my gear ready. Thanks for the breakfast.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was painfully clear that Blue didn’t believe her.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nick had his back to the doorway when they entered the agency, bent over an open drawer in one of the filing cabinets along the back of the room. He turned around as the door shut behind them, a file held in his hands while the stark light from the bulb hanging from the ceiling cast his face half in shadow under his hat. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He walked over and set the file down on his desk, his glowing eyes shifting between the two of them, “I was starting to think that you two managed to get lost. I did some digging into Kellogg’s file last night.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is there anything that can help us find him?” Blue was already at the desk, her long legs closing the distance in the blink of an eye. Piper was a bit slower in getting up next to her to glance over what Nick had set down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nick flipped open the file, fanning out some of the typewritten papers that Piper couldn’t quite make out from where she was, “I have a few things, but he seems to have a knack for pulling off a convincing vanishing act. None of the logs that I managed to get from Diamond City Security show him leaving the city around the time he abandoned his house in the stands.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue flipped around one of the papers, scanning it over, “He </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> to have left the city somehow.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nick picked up another paper from the desk, scanning it over before flipping it towards Blue, “We do know that the log books note he came back to the city in October, he only stayed in the market for an hour or so before leaving again. He never bought anything, at least not that anyone wrote down.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue grabbed the paper from him, looking it over before turning and offering it to her. Piper took the paper from her and scanned it over. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Damn, I just missed him. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The date on the sighting was October 18, the day after she printed that article on McDonough. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She looked up at Blue, watching the way that her shoulders set themselves in a straight line, the clear frustration present in her eyes as she began pacing around the room, “I missed him by less than a day... I-” Blue paused next to the door, her back to both of them, “No, I don’t regret helping those people. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>regret that.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper looked over at Nick, their eyes meeting before Piper walked over to Blue. She kept her distance for a few moments, suddenly feeling unsure of her ability to comfort her on this. She settled for resting her hand gently on her shoulder, hoping it was enough, “You did the right thing for those people, Blue.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue turned her head to look at her, the scar on her cheek almost dark red in the uneven light, “I know. I- I wish I could have been here sooner, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper wanted to put her hand on Blue’s cheek and run her thumb over the scar, wipe that pained look off her face. She abruptly dropped her hand from her shoulder when she realized what she was thinking, wringing her hands together to keep them occupied, “We’ll find him, I swear.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue nodded, that puzzled, slightly hurt look in her eyes making Piper feel like she was trying to piece out why she was suddenly distant, but that look was gone after a second as she shifted to Nick, “I told you I know someone who can track a scent yesterday, but I’m going to have to send a letter to someone to get him here.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nick rearranged the files back into the folder, those deft robotic hands organizing it with practiced ease, “You’re going to want to talk to one of the caravans, they are the ones that handle the mail these days. You’ll want to pay extra if you want your letter to get to your friend by the end of the week.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you have some paper and a pen I could borrow?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nick turned around and shuffled through some papers on top of one of the old filing cabinets. Piper took a step back from Blue as she walked past her and back to the desk. She saw her glance her way as she passed by, one eyebrow raised, but Piper just shook her head. She wasn’t going to be able to explain it, so she only hoped that Blue would drop it the moment more important things were going on. Nick turned back to face Blue, handing over a banged up old pen and a piece of paper. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Watching Blue write was mesmerizing; The letters were neat and orderly, written with precision by hands that had obviously written thousands of pages before. Her hand held the pen like it was an extension of her fingers, and Piper couldn’t help but wonder if Blue was an artist, too. It was almost embarrassing how taken she was by watching Blue write a stupid </span>
  <em>
    <span>letter</span>
  </em>
  <span>, of all things. But it wasn’t every day that she stood and watched someone who was basically a walking time capsule do something that was so rare nowadays. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue folded the letter over once she was finished, looking back up at Nick, “Do you have an envelope?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper shook her head and looked away as they kept talking and organizing the necessities to get Blue’s mysterious companion out here to help them. She needed to get over herself and her feelings on this whole thing, otherwise it would come up sooner or later and ruin the otherwise good thing they had going. She could already tell that Blue was picking up on it, so the sooner she got this under control, the better. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Blue left to go drop her letter off with one of the caravans that had stopped in town for the day, Piper choosing to head back home and get the printing press fired up for the week. She couldn’t shake that initial discomfort she felt when she opened the door, noticing the way the handle seemed loose and slightly askew still. The idea of someone else coming in here and messing with her stuff made her feel ill. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had multiple threats against her life, and she definitely had enemies. But to have someone come into her home, her one place in the world she was supposed to be able to feel safe, and mess with it? That fucked with her pretty badly, as much as she was loath to admit it. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She made her way upstairs the moment she walked through the door, shaking off the discomfort and trying to refocus on the task at hand. She breezed past Nat, who was sitting at the coffee table with some homework out. Nat looked bored out of her mind and vaguely confused, but Piper was going to have to get the paper on the press before she could offer any help. She wanted to get it done before nightfall, if only to finally have some papers to sell tomorrow to stop the bleeding in their finances. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Transcribing on the computer would hopefully be faster than handwriting out every last word as she did the night before. And it turned out to be; she had most of the articles done within the hour, choosing to ignore the sound of the front door opening as Blue got back from the front gate. She wasn’t exactly jumping to talk to her right then, not with all the work and her own irrational feelings that she needed to figure out a way to get over without self-destructing. She hoped Blue would stop and help Nat out with her work, and her hope was fulfilled when she heard their quiet voices drift up through the floorboards. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The moment she finished typing, she pulled the hard drive out of the computer and made her way downstairs to finally print the damn thing. She passed by where Blue and Nat were leaning over a textbook in the living room, and then into the kitchen. She stopped right before she reached the door, noticing the way that it swung slightly even before she touched it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  
  <em>
    <span>It’s open?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Any other time she would’ve brushed it off, but she had a bad feeling in the base of her stomach as she pushed it the rest of the way open. The garage was dark enough that she couldn’t really see much, but she stepped in anyway and flipped the switch that turned on the lightbulb in the middle of the room. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was a disaster, papers crumpled and ripped, tools and scrap metal thrown around. She could see that the reader she used to scan the hard drives for the printing press was overturned and smashed in. The most out of place thing in the chaos was a piece of paper folded neatly in the middle of the floor. She picked it up and flipped it open with shaky hands. A handwritten letter from… someone. It was a single sentence, no from’s or to’s on it. It made her blood run cold. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>They’re coming for you next if you do anything again, lay low. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was scrawled in a handwriting that almost reminded her of a child’s. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She heard footsteps stop at the doorway, looking up to see Blue standing there, concern evident on her face, “Piper?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper turned and held the paper up, “Looks like they couldn’t resist leaving me a threat.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue stepped into the garage, taking the paper from her and looking it over before looking back up with wide eyes, “Have you checked the printing press?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Shit. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Well now she would, she practically ran to it, taking off the top panel as soon as she was in arms-reach of it. The inside was busted up, almost like someone hit it with a blunt object from the side. She felt panic prickle at the back of her mind, this thing was probably the most expensive thing she owned; and her only way to make more money. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She looked up and over at Blue, “They destroyed it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They hadn’t moved from where they stood in minutes, Piper too anxious to really even think as she continued staring down into the depths of the printing press, at all the components that were now bent out of shape or broken. She eventually snapped herself out of it, looking up again at Blue, “I’m not gonna hold you back from finding Kellogg, Blue.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was an unasked question on Blue’s part, but Piper could practically hear what she would have said; </span>
  <em>
    <span>Do you want me to stay here with you until we stop whoever did this?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue’s hands were shaking as she gripped on tightly to the paper, her face set in somewhere between a grimace and a look Piper could only figure was as close to pure rage as she’d ever seen directed at her from Blue, “So someone threatens you, destroys your garage, breaks your printing press, and I’m just supposed to go off in a few days and deal with Kellogg anyway?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper could tell the anger wasn’t really </span>
  <em>
    <span>anger </span>
  </em>
  <span>so much as worry, but that look still stung to see, “Blue, I can’t ask you to sacrifice your chance to get him for me. Kellogg’s had too much time already to try and hide away, I don’t want to hold you up long enough that his trail fades completely.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue dropped the paper on the floor, stepping towards her until they were barely a foot apart and taking one her hands between her own. It sent a jolt up her spine, the tension hard to breathe around as Blue began talking, “Making sure you’re safe has a tangible effect </span>
  <em>
    <span>right now</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Piper. Who’s to say that Kellogg isn’t already long gone- my family certainly is. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I just left and you-” Blue’s throat bobbed as she swallowed, her eyes not really meeting hers anymore, not that she was honestly complaining, having Blue so close and so </span>
  <em>
    <span>emotional</span>
  </em>
  <span> was doing weird things to her stomach. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper willed herself to move, her first instinct to step back and pull her hand away, no matter how much she didn’t actually want to, “I’ll be fine, I promise. I’m not gonna up and die on you to some coward who can’t even do me the pleasure of trying to threaten me in person.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue looked hurt for a second, but it was replaced with an eye roll and a half-laugh, half-sigh, “You are really stubborn, you know that?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Ha, what else did you expect from someone like me?” Piper felt the strong urge to grab a cigarette and light it, but she settled for taking her pen out of her pocket and fiddling with it to keep her hands busy and her mind somewhat distracted, “You don’t get far in my work by being easy.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue shook her head and sighed playfully, but annoyance was still clear in the way she held herself, “I’m gonna fix the printing press before my dog arrives, at least- “</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She dropped her pen back in her pocket at that, looking up in surprise, “You have a </span>
  <em>
    <span>dog?” </span>
  </em>
  <span> How the </span>
  <em>
    <span>hell </span>
  </em>
  <span>did she miss that?</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, yeah…. I left him with Preston when I came to Diamond City the first time. I’m surprised you didn’t see him running around Sanctuary.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She did remember seeing a dog wandering around Sanctuary, she found it strange it still had all its fur, but it faded to the background of other things she was helping out with at the time, “Well- I come across a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lot </span>
  </em>
  <span>of strays, Blue.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, so I’m definitely not the first.” Blue quipped. She was already half-bent over the printing press, her reply seeming more like an afterthought than an actual attempt to pay attention to the conversation.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> It took her a moment to catch what she meant, but when she did she had to suppress a laugh and roll her eyes, “I meant dogs, Blue.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Blue wasn’t listening anymore, too focused on tinkering with the machine to even acknowledge that she said anything at all. It was more endearing than frustrating how </span>
  <em>
    <span>completely </span>
  </em>
  <span>Blue got sucked into things she was interested in. Piper decided, on that note,  to take her leave after a few moments, picking up the letter from the ground on her way inside. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nat was sitting on the couch when Piper walked into the living room, her homework out in front of her but her eyes decidedly not focused on it. She kept occasionally glancing at Piper, one leg bouncing up and down with enough speed to shake the coffee table in front of her. She looked ready to jump up and say something the moment Piper got close enough.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Sure enough, she looked up as Piper walked by to take that damn letter upstairs, “Hey, what’s going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh god, </span>
  </em>
  <span>if Nat got involved in this-, “I don’t need you worrying about this, Nat.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I heard-” Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>not this.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper cut her off, “Nat, we’re fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nat, bless her soul, was </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly </span>
  </em>
  <span>like her when it came to this stuff, “Someone threatened you-”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Drop it.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nat threw her arms up, indignance clear in every inch of her body language and voice, “Someone broke into our house! Why are you trying to gloss over this, Piper? I’m not dumb, y’know.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper sighed, “No, Nat, I- I know you’re smart, I just- I don’t need you getting involved in this. It’s for your own good, I don’t need you ending up in danger.” </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nat laughed, it wasn’t a nice laugh. more like the one Piper did when someone said something that was clearly bullshit, “You trust me to stay on my own for months on end without trouble, but you don’t trust me to be able to handle things without causing trouble when something bad is happening to </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Well, </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Nat had a </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>good point there, and Piper suddenly felt a lot worse for thinking that staying away from her was the best idea, “You’re right. I’m sorry. We had someone break in and mess with the printing press this week.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And they threatened you?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” She could see Nat eyeing the note in her hand, “I’m not gonna let you read it.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She deflated a little bit, dropping her head, “Darn it.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Get back to work, kiddo.” Piper turned back toward the stairs but stopped halfway, her voice softening, “Let me deal with this, alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nat nodded, disappointment clear as she slowly picked up her pencil and stared blankly at the textbook once again. Nat was going to get into the middle of something bad one day, and Piper was going to have to swoop in and rescue her. Better her than nothing, but that wasn’t a comforting thought </span>
  <em>
    <span>at all.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She took extra care to hide the letter well when she got into her bedroom, otherwise she knew she’d catch Nat with it by morning. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue returned to the living room after a few hours, the sun long since set again while Piper had kept herself busy with checking the rest of the house for any sabotage or threats. She didn’t turn up anything, but she couldn’t shake that feeling of violation that came with finding out that even the places she considered sacred could and would be trespassed by those that sought to do her harm. It wasn’t a new feeling, but she never really got used to it. Blue seemed to hesitate when she entered the living room, her expression a lot more closed off than it had been at any point that day. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper was standing next to the stove, her hands covered by mitts as she held the door open and threw a couple more pieces of wood into it, “There, it should stay warm in here all night this time around.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was an unspoken request, Blue clearly understanding that last night couldn’t, </span>
  <em>
    <span>shouldn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> be the norm between them. She breathed in, sounding like she was about to say something, but after a few seconds of silence she only mumbled out, “Thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper turned away from the stove, taking off the mitts with a swift downward shake of her hands, “Are you gonna be okay down here tonight?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blue nodded, not really looking at her as she pulled her rifle from behind the couch and started inspecting it, “Yeah, I’m going to keep watch.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper almost wanted to leave it at that, but she </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed</span>
  </em>
  <span> to know, “How’s the printing press?” </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Pretty busted up, but I think I can find some new parts from the market.” There was a pause, long enough that Piper almost turned and went upstairs before Blue opened her mouth again, “Are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>sure</span>
  </em>
  <span> you don’t want me to stick around once my dog gets here?”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I’ll be alright Blue, I’ve dealt with stuff like this before.” She could still remember the way the door slammed open in the middle of the night, her dad’s bloodied body still fresh in her mind as she hid under the bed, clutching at the stack of papers she had plastered with the name and face of the man responsible. She swallowed down the lump in her throat, staring at her feet in an attempt to keep Blue from seeing the sudden pain in her eyes, “I’ll talk with Nick about it tomorrow, see if he can clue into a suspect or two.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper could see Blue’s hands relax slightly on the barrel of her rifle from the corner of her eye, “Good.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She fell silent after that, deft hands flipping the rifle this way and that, playing with all the various chambers and levers Piper had never learned the proper names for. She still wasn’t entirely sure that Blue had </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>been a soldier in her past life. But if she was, she clearly didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t like Piper didn’t have her own ghosts she was keeping tucked away in the dark corners of her mind. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Piper watched the fire through the small window on the side of the stove before turning and starting back on her way up the stairs, her stomach still tied in a knot. </span>
  <span>She spent the whole night tossing and turning, slipping in and out of consciousness to the sound of restless footsteps downstairs. It was clear that she wasn’t alone in her inability to sleep, but she couldn’t bring herself to go downstairs to ask her to come up to bed, even if it would make sleep come easier.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> Sunlight peaked in through the cracks in the wall by the time she finally managed to close her eyes for more than a few minutes. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>WOW this chapter ended up being very long. 5402 words! The next chapters will be posted closer together now since I already have them partially written. Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Everybody Lost Somebody (cover by Julien Baker): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X7cDzaMuI8</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning was largely uneventful. Piper slept through half of it before dragging herself out of bed and down the stairs to fix herself something to eat. The living room was empty, but she could hear Blue tinkering with the printing press through the door as she passed by. She was abruptly reminded by the sound that she was going to go and talk to Nick about the whole situation that day. Though if she was being honest, she really just wanted to crawl back into bed and try to force herself to get more than three measly hours of what barely counted as sleep. She settled on taking a can of some kind of stuffing and eating it with a spoon before she took her scarf off the coat hanger near the door and headed out into the cold morning air. </p><p> </p><p>Nick was reading a Boston bugle when she walked in, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and his hat sat upside down on the desk. Though the circuitry and metal parts were always visible, there was something about seeing the smooth top of her head, with those seams that reminded her he was nowhere near human, that disturbed her slightly. </p><p> </p><p>She shook it off when he looked up, though, his eyes crinkling up at the corners in a decidedly human way as he set his cigarette in the ashtray near the end of the desk, “Piper, good to see you again. Did you guys manage to get the letter sent?”</p><p> </p><p>He seemed to notice that Blue was missing as she replied, “Blue said it went off without a hitch. Can’t say much of the same for my time in the city.” </p><p> </p><p>Nick sat back in his chair, motioning to her to sit down, “Is Diamond City Security still giving you trouble?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper sat down, scooting the chair in until her knees almost hit the metal back of the desk, “Well, they certainly aren’t leaving me alone. Someone broke into my house and messed with my papers and the press. DCS is my best guess.”</p><p> </p><p> Nick nodded, rummaging through one of the side drawers on his desk before setting a pen and a pad of paper in front of him, “Are you sure it wasn’t a lone wolf? Maybe one that had taken issue with you over something else?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper shook her head, watching as he picked up the pen and began writing, “It happened way too close to me being allowed back in the city, Nick. And as far as I’m aware DCS, City Council, and McDonough are the only ones that even knew that I was even kicked out in the first place. And I don’t think the city council has a personal reason to go after me like the other two… yet.”</p><p> </p><p>Nick hummed in thought, writing quickly before dropping the pen back on the pad of paper and looking up, “Well I can certainly look into it for you. But I’ll need you to stay out of everyone’s hair for a little while. It wouldn’t help if I caught the suspect red-handed if you’re already face down in a ditch somewhere.”</p><p> </p><p>It was a joke, a dry one, but the thought sent an unpleasant shiver up her spine. She tried to laugh it off, “No promises there, Nicky.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” He stated, already fishing another cigarette out of his coat pocket. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>It was becoming increasingly obvious to Piper that Blue was avoiding her.</p><p> </p><p> It wasn’t aggressively obvious; if Piper didn’t know enough of Blue’s tells by now, she’d say that nothing was wrong. But it was the small things, like the way she avoided the living room whenever Piper was in there. She would lock herself up in the garage all day (to try and piece back together the printing press, she said- Not that Piper wasn’t extremely grateful for her efforts to fix it) or leave all day on some small adventure or another in or around the city.  When they did talk, Blue was always perfectly pleasant but clearly frustrated with Piper’s continued dodging of her questions and her attempts at physical affection being rejected over and over again. After a few days, their eyes never quite met and their words were surface-level at best. Maybe it <em> was </em>the best Piper could hope for at this point, the price of trying to kill her unpleasant and unwanted feelings.  </p><p> </p><p>It was a distance she didn’t know how to cross anymore without opening up about things that were bound to ruin it anyway. It really felt like a loss of their friendship, too.</p><p> </p><p>And yet none of that stopped Piper from noticing the way that Blue would stare off into the distance sometimes; her eyes unfocused and her body tense with some kind of deep-seated despair. She’d catch Blue messing with her guns in the small moments she came home and actually sat down for a few minutes. Impatience and anger were clear in every line of her body at a frequency that made the distance between them feel even more daunting. </p><p> </p><p>She didn’t feel she had the right to ask Blue to confide in her anymore, so she did her best to just continue on with her own work. </p><p> </p><p>Her normal interviewing and writing were punctuated with distractions, the investigation Nick was conducting being the biggest one. He had come over and noted all the damage down in a small pocket notebook, taking things with him that he found particularly interesting. including that note that Piper had kept well-hidden from Nat. </p><p> </p><p>It had been a few days at that point since the last time Nick came in to gather evidence. Every day since had felt nearly monotone in comparison, the same cycle of writing and normal routines being repeated over and over again. The only real excitement came from Nat, who had been suspended for punching a classmate in the nose after he tried to kiss her. Piper had pretended to be mad for a few minutes, but she quickly dropped the act. And if Nat happened to find some caps on top of her dresser the next morning... well, Piper wasn’t going to say anything about it. </p><p> </p><p>Blue was out of the city that day, she had said something offhand about finding a part for the printer that she had “been screwed out of” by one of the merchants in the market . He had tried to charge her triple what it was worth and she wasn’t having it. Piper appreciated Blue keeping the expenses down, but they could’ve afforded it. Still, Blue had said not to worry so much and left what was now a few hours ago.  It wasn’t uncommon nowadays for Blue to just leave and go off into Boston proper, but Piper would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little worried anyway. </p><p> </p><p>She realized she had been staring blankly at her notepad for a good few minutes at that point and sat back in her desk chair. She needed a break, nothing was getting done and she was itching for a smoke. </p><p> </p><p>She stood up and headed out onto the rooftop balcony, rummaging through her pockets for her lighter and pack of cigarettes. It was an unusually sunny day for the middle of winter, the snow having melted back a bit in spite of the snowstorms that passed through last week and two days ago. She stood near the edge of the roof, looking towards the chapel and the stairs that led up to the front gate. The chapel was decorated with garlands and lights- Christmas was tomorrow, if she remembered right.</p><p> </p><p> She had… tried to keep up the traditions after her dad died, but it became too painful to do anything more than the bare minimum most years. Too many good memories tainted with innocent blood and cold, hungry nights. Still, she tried to keep up at least <em> some </em> of the traditions for the sake of her little sister. Nat barely remembered their dad anyway, and Piper wasn’t going to deprive her of the simple joys of a few presents and a big meal. </p><p> </p><p>Piper wondered if Blue celebrated Christmas, or any holiday for that matter. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about how people before the Great War used to celebrate certain holidays. </p><p> </p><p>It would have to wait until she came back, though. <em> If she comes back… </em> </p><p> </p><p>She dropped the cigarette into an ashtray that balanced precariously on the small wall that marked the end of the balcony. Maybe it was her own anxiety, her own (justified) fear of losing someone she had started to value so much (And yet continued to push away). But she could see Blue leaving one day and never walking back through those gates- and she knew it would be at least partially her fault.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p> Blue came back later that night, holding her backpack like she was trying to keep a secret. She wouldn’t stop glancing over at Piper from the moment she walked through the door. It was slightly unnerving after days of Blue basically never bothering to look in her direction anymore. Blue seemed full of a kind of anxious energy that was hard to describe. If she didn’t know any better, she would say she was on something.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, Piper decided to say something. “Blue?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue stopped fiddling with the strap of her backpack where she held it in her lap on the couch, looking up at Piper with a look that practically screamed she had been caught, “Yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue huffed, it was almost a laugh, “Oh, nothing. I just was wondering.”</p><p> </p><p>“About what?”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you guys still have Christmas?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, what-”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, okay.” That seemed to confirm whatever curiosity Blue had, and she went back to fiddling with her backpack and pulling out an entire <em>desk fan</em> before setting it to the side and standing up. </p><p> </p><p>Piper stood up from her chair, too, her curiosity getting the better of her, “Why?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue seemed like she didn’t want to answer that particular question, brushing it off like Piper had never even asked in the first place. She gestured vaguely to her backpack and the desk fan on the couch, “I was searching for those parts for the printing press. I got a few things for it.”</p><p> </p><p>“That wasn’t-” She cut herself off, breathing in sharply. Blue kept <em> doing </em> this to her, and she’d be lying if she said it wasn’t driving her crazy. </p><p> </p><p>Blue seemed to be waiting for her to finish her sentence, an arched eyebrow almost <em> daring </em> her to react the way she really  wanted to. Part of her wondered if this was Blue’s way of getting back at her for how often she brushed off her own questions. </p><p> </p><p> It took all her energy to redirect her sentence, and it still came out with that same indignant tone, “How will a desk fan- you know what? You fixed it last time, I’ll trust you.” Piper paused, trying to gather her will back to be <em> nice </em>, “You didn’t have to do that, y’know; Fix the printing press for nothing.”</p><p> </p><p>That seemed to disarm Blue a bit, her expression becoming more earnest and open, “I wanted to, I don’t want them to be able to take that away from you.” Blue was shifting from leg to leg, her words more a plea than a statement, “You’re my best friend.”</p><p> </p><p><em> A pretty crap one, at that. </em> She shook off the feeling of tension in her throat, forcing herself to relax, “Thank you, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue reached over and gave her a hug with one arm, offering a nonverbal truce. Piper tensed up at the contact, and Blue seemed to notice pretty much immediately. She pulled back like she had been burned and coughed awkwardly into her elbow before walking off to the kitchen. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>It was a camera- a whole one, at that- that Blue handed her first thing in the morning. Her expression was a kind of forced happiness, a smile that didn’t really reach her eyes. But that look became real (though guarded) when Piper took the camera from her and flipped it around, holding it up to her face to look through the lens before dropping her arms in disbelief.</p><p> </p><p>“How-“ Piper was at a loss for words, “ I can’t believe- You’re- Argh.” She let out a frustrated noise, words completely failing her and her better senses abandoning her as she wrapped her arms around Blue’s shoulders, pulling her down into an awkward hug that was the most real physical contact they had shared in days, “<em> Thank you </em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue laughed against her shoulder, her hands held tightly to the fabric of Piper’s shirt like she was afraid Piper was going to push her away again, “I’m glad you like it.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper backed up after a few moments, wiping at her face when she realized she was nearly about to cry, “Where did you even manage to find this?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue’s shoulders relaxed, her body language entirely different from how it had been earlier, “Here and there, the lens and the film were the toughest parts to locate. I couldn’t find any film that didn’t have damage from the fallout, but I tried.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper looked down at the camera in her hands, a wave of guilt and <em> awe </em> overtaking her, “You- you <em> made </em>this?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not from scratch, it was just a few parts that needed to be switched out…” She looked sheepish, “I thought you could use it for the paper, maybe.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue didn’t seem to have much to say after that, nodding along to Piper’s thank you’s and posing for a picture so she could test her new gadget. The film quality was grainy at best, but it was better than any rudimentary sketch she’d ever done.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t even a start to closing that distance between them, but for a morning things almost felt normal again. It felt like a slap in the face, those few hours of normalcy amplifying how <em> abnormal </em> her actions to try and push Blue away were, how <em> distant </em> they had become by her own doing. She pretended like Blue was a stranger in her house, but she was lying to herself. She was attached to her in more ways than one, and trying to remove her sudden feelings for her was like trying to cut off her own arm. And Piper wasn’t strong enough to do it.</p><p> </p><p>It was only when she went up to her room to put the camera away that she began to cry. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>---------------</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Blue didn’t really smile much for the rest of the day once Piper came back downstairs. She practically frowned her way through Nat opening presents, only able to muster up a small smile every now and then as Nat showed off the three or so things she had gotten that year. Blue picked at her food when dinner came around, clearly uninterested in ragstag roast and the canned stuffing Piper practically kept a stockpile of. Blue got up after a few minutes and put her plate out in the garage (the closest thing Piper had to an icebox) before excusing herself from the room and disappearing out into the street. </p><p> </p><p>Every bone in Piper’s body was practically screaming at her to follow her out the moment she walked out the door, but she chose to stay and finish up dinner with Nat- If only to give Blue a moment to herself before she came in to be nosy about things that were never really her business in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>Once dinner was done and cleaned up, Piper made an offhand remark to Nat about going to find Blue and went out into the evening air. There were some people congregating in front of the chapel, talking among themselves and largely ignoring her. She did the same to them, looking around the market to see if she could catch a glimpse of wherever Blue went off to. She eventually spotted a shadow up in the stands, shaped exactly like a certain missing vault dweller.</p><p> </p><p>She walked in her general direction and climbed up one of the maintenance ladders behind the guard barracks. Blue barely seemed to notice her as she approached, staring blankly out into Diamond City. </p><p> </p><p>“Blue?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh-” Blue turned around, the twilight not really hiding just how <em> red </em> her eyes were, “Hey, Piper.”</p><p> </p><p><em> Oh. </em>“I can-” She pointed vaguely in the direction she came from, “I didn’t mean to- I just- I wanted to... “</p><p> </p><p>Blue seemed to understand what she was completely failing to get out of her stupid mouth, patting the concrete next to her, “Come here.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper let out a breath and sat down next to Blue, “I just wanted to check up on you.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue laughed weakly, her voice breaking, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to just walk out like that.”</p><p> </p><p>“No- you’re fine, Blue.” Piper shook her head, “This is a… weird time of year.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue sat silent for a while, staring out at the horizon, “You know, I was so <em> sure </em> that every Christmas with Nate would be my last, with him in the army and all.” </p><p> </p><p>There was a long pause, Blue reaching up and fidgeting with a piece of hair before dropping her hand back into her lap. </p><p> </p><p>Her voice was a little louder when she spoke again, “A few normal Christmases with him home for good and I started thinking- hoping that maybe we’d have some Christmases to look forward to, after all.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper didn’t dare speak, she didn’t think she <em> could </em>. The vulnerability in every word stabbed her right in the chest and, she thought, it felt a lot like her own heart was breaking right along with Blue’s. </p><p> </p><p>“Then I got pregnant. I was <em> so excited </em>, Piper. It was supposed to be Shaun’s first Christmas.” Blue’s voice grew strangled, her stare never breaking from the lights of the city, “I knew they were going to do it, we all did. We all pretended it wasn’t happening, but we all knew. I wish I never would have let myself believe that everything would be okay.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue fell silent for a long time after that, tentatively leaning into Piper’s side. She didn’t even think of pulling away then, she couldn’t even if she had wanted to. Blue was leaning against her like she was the only thing keeping her there, like without her she would just crumble away into dust. </p><p> </p><p>She still didn’t know what to say. It was a strange feeling to be left without the one thing she was always capable of doing; talking. Where she’d usually find a witty comment or a supportive word, there was nothing. The silence stretched on for what felt like forever, and Piper was slowly drowning in it. </p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know how to keep going like this.” It was barely a whisper when Blue spoke again. She felt her whole body slump against her, “I’m afraid I’m going to kill Kellogg and not have anything left to give this world.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, Blue, I- I think you have a <em> lot </em>you can give, more than you think.”  Piper finally found her voice, but the words still felt almost impossible, “Here, let me tell you something; I lost my dad right before Christmas, six years ago.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue looked up at her, her face going from despair to concern in a second, “I’m sorry-” </p><p> </p><p><em> Damn it, </em> that wasn’t the outcome she was hoping for. </p><p> </p><p>Piper shook her head, “Wait, there’s a point I want to make with this, I swear.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue paused, her mouth snapping shut as she nodded slowly.</p><p> </p><p>“So,” Her words felt clumsy, every one feeling like she was exposing too much, “When he died, I stopped living for a little while right there with him. My only purpose was bringing his murderer to justice and protecting the town I grew up in, like he would. Once that was done and over with, I wanted to ignore everything- give up. But I had to be strong for Nat.” </p><p> </p><p>Blue was still looking at her with concern, but it was slowly being replaced by understanding.</p><p> </p><p>"Sometimes I think Nat was the only thing that kept me going," She took a deep breath in and let it out, her shoulders deflating. She was doing a horrible job at empathizing, but she was never one to quit once she started,  “My point is, I don’t know what it feels like to lose someone like Nate or Shaun... but I know what it feels like to not know how to go on without that someone you thought would <em> always </em>be there. And… and I can tell you that I know you’ll find your feet again, Blue. And when you do, I think you can do anything you put your mind to.”</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know when Blue took her hand in her own, but the feeling of their hands clasped together felt more <em> right </em> than anything else could at that moment. </p><p> </p><p>“I-,”Blue leaned her head against her shoulder, “Thank you.”</p><p><br/>
<em> Of course, </em>“Of course, Blue.” She leaned her head on top of hers, “You’re my best friend, too.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Piper had made it a habit to go outside whenever she got too stressed out while trying to get through her backlog of stories for the month. A cigarette and some fresh air did her a world of good with getting her head back on straight. Sometimes it was the balcony, sometimes it was out on street level with the crowds when she managed to feel safe enough, despite the overhanging fear of some institute synth or corrupt guard deeming her an easy target. Today she felt like she needed to be in the thick of it rather than overlooking it from her perch on the roof, even with her anxiety telling her to go back inside and hide away from any potential threats. </p><p> </p><p>She tried to not think about Blue leaving soon, though every day that passed filled her with more and more dread about her leaving. She also tried to avoid thinking about  her own complicated feelings surrounding her. Christmas seemed to change things ever so slightly, that easy warmth between them flaring back to life like had never even been missing in the first place. Blue looked a little less frustrated and Piper got a little bit better at ignoring her feelings. Still, sometimes a look or a touch would leave her heart beating like a drum and her words a tangled mess. <em> A day at a time </em> , she kept repeating to herself, <em> It’ll go away. </em> A mantra of pure futility. It felt impossible for Blue to do anything that wouldn’t somehow make her fall a little further.  </p><p> </p><p>Blue hadn’t left Diamond City for a few days, too anxious about the caravans coming through to do more than walk circles around the market and walk up to the top of the stairs that exited Diamond city to stare before turning around and coming right back inside. She tended to spend the rest of the day reading, cleaning obsessively, and occasionally talking to either her or Nat. Today, she had left to go over to the Dugout Inn to ask Vadim or Yefim if they needed her for anything. It was mostly Piper’s suggestion, since Blue had been pacing downstairs for over an hour after she once again obsessively cleaned the entire first floor. It was driving Piper <em> nuts </em> . That left the house mostly (thankfully)  quiet, and therefore Piper’s mind felt a <em> lot </em>clearer, but it also made her negative thoughts a lot louder.</p><p> </p><p>There was the break-in that Nick was still looking into for her, for one thing. So far he had found no real evidence to point to <em> who </em> did it (though she was pretty damn sure on who, but “sure” wasn’t enough when she’d be accusing the Mayor and the guard captain of crimes that regularly got capital punishment in these parts). She had taken it into her own hands to beef up security, adding a thick slab of steel to the front door and a couple new locks. She had added a metal bar to the inside of both of the doors in her room, too. It still didn’t feel like enough, she didn’t think she’d ever feel fully safe so long as she chose to live in Diamond City and write what she wrote about. </p><p> </p><p>And write she did. She’d be lying if she said she actually heeded Nick’s advice for longer than a few days...</p><p> </p><p>But hey, at least she tried. </p><p> </p><p>She decided to write up an article about the unfair targeting of the press (which was really just her) and left it in the pile with her other half-finished articles. Two sides of her were warring with each other over the issue of actually publishing it; the logical side of her said it was stupid (and it <em> was), </em>but the bull-headed reporter in her couldn’t just keep mum about something so insanely important as major players of the institutions of the Diamond City government threatening a (mostly) law-abiding citizen because they didn’t like her words.   </p><p> </p><p>At this rate, if Nick didn’t come up with anything soon, she was going to have to do her own damn investigation too. She wasn’t going to let whoever messed with her home get away with it.  </p><p> </p><p>While she was busy being lost in her thoughts, a  traveler had stopped near one of the guards that was stationed right at the start of the stairs that led out of the city. He was chatting casually with the guard, a tattered backpack hanging off one shoulder. He just looked like any other scavver, probably chatting the guard up for some caps or something, but she kept an eye on him. </p><p> </p><p>He looked insanely familiar to her, now that she was paying attention, but she couldn’t quite place him. She couldn’t recall ever seeing someone with his black hair or faded orange jacket before, but that feeling stuck around anyway. </p><p> </p><p>She went back to smoking her cigarette after a few moments, looking around the market, but she nearly choked on the smoke she just inhaled when she heard the scavver mention her <em> by name </em> . At least, she <em> thought </em>she did, she couldn’t exactly be sure with how noisy the street was. She looked back over at them, noticing the way the guard was suddenly glancing over at her, his hand coming to rest on his hip where his holster sat but his stance still casual. The guard turned and asked the scavver a question, his tone sharp but the words being drowned out by the movement of bodies through the mud in the street. The scavver shook his head in response, seemingly waving him off before readjusting his bag and heading towards the alleyway that led to the Dugout Inn.</p><p> </p><p>She was watching his every move like a hawk now, her eyes practically burning a hole into the back of his skull as he passed by. He seemed to know she was watching him, his walk more practiced ease than actual obliviousness. It was confirmed for her when he glanced her way, half-raising his hand in a wave before continuing on and disappearing out of sight. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p><em> Well, </em> that certainly wasn’t going to help her sleep tonight. The way he walked and the particular way he looked her over reminded her of someone she’d seen around before, but that almost sounded insane, even to her. She had half the mind to follow after him, demand to know just <em> why </em>the hell he was talking with Diamond City Security about her, how he appeared to know her. And what he said to make that guard so tense and ready to pull a gun on her in particular- Not that most of the guards outside of Danny seemed to need an excuse for that anymore. </p><p> </p><p>She dropped her cigarette into the mud, making her way across the street towards the Inn. She didn’t have a plan, but when did she ever? All she knew is that she had been threatened and harassed by the people meant to protect the citizens of this city for the better part of a few months now, and this guy was probably in on it somehow. Her mind was so focused on trying to get to the scavver that she didn’t even notice the people around her until she ran bodily into someone, almost knocking them over. </p><p> </p><p>She stumbled once and turned to them, reaching out a hand to try and steady them before they fell, “Sorry!”</p><p> </p><p>She felt the rest of her words die in her throat. </p><p> </p><p> It was a young man, probably not much older than sixteen or seventeen. He was wearing a Minuteman pin on the collar of his blue wool jacket, a crudely-made pipe rifle slung over one shoulder with a sling made out of some ancient strip of cloth. He looked half-frozen, his ears frost-burnt red underneath a militia hat that was two sizes too big for his head.  It only took her a split second to notice the dog by his side, and she felt her stomach drop.</p><p> </p><p>He cleared his throat, straightening his militia hat, “No worries, ma’am.”</p><p> </p><p>She could almost laugh at how formal that title sounded compared to how she looked right at that moment; mud-scuffed and disheveled from pushing through the crowd, her mouth somewhere between a grimace and a polite smile, “You’re looking for Blue, aren’t ya?”</p><p> </p><p>He nodded, glancing around the crowds before looking back to her with wide eyes, “Do you know her?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper looked back over in the direction of the Inn; the scavver wasn’t visible but she’d have to go ahead and confront him later, as much as she wanted to <em> now </em>.  She turned back to the kid, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice, “You could say that- Piper Wright, Publick Occurrences. Blue’s a friend of mine. I’ll get you two warmed up if you’ll follow me.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-----------------</span>
</p><p> </p><p>Piper took the kid back inside her house, offering him something to eat and a spot by the wood stove to warm up. The woolen jacket that he had come dressed in was moth-eaten and badly worn out, enough so that Piper went ahead and gave him a slightly less tattered one out of the closet near the door. It took awhile for Blue to come back home, the boy sitting there awkwardly as Piper offered him coffee and asked him questions about how Preston and the others were doing back in Sanctuary. He didn’t have as many answers as she would have liked, but he was a good sport about being practically interrogated by her anyway.</p><p> </p><p>Blue eventually arrived back when it was near dusk, her leather jacket blood-spattered and a fresh new bruise on her face. </p><p> </p><p>Piper <em> really </em> wanted to know just what the hell Vadim and Yefim had had her doing all day that resulted in that, but she couldn’t say she was necessarily <em> surprised </em>. She resolved to ask her later, once the kid had said his piece to Blue. </p><p> </p><p>The boy left after a good twenty minutes of quiet discussion with Blue, leaving behind Dogmeat and a letter from Preston that Blue was still playing with the corner of. She had barely glanced at Piper when she walked through the door earlier, but now all she could feel was Blue’s eyes on her.</p><p> </p><p>“So,” Piper started, not really returning that look, “When are you leaving?”</p><p> </p><p>“I-“ Blue paused for a long moment, “Now, I guess.”</p><p> </p><p>It felt like a punch in the gut, enough that she inhaled a little harder than she meant to, “Well, let’s get you packed up then.”</p><p> </p><p>“Piper.” Blue’s voice cut through the sudden turmoil in her mind like a crack of lightning, “I can stay a little longer... or you can come with me.”</p><p> </p><p>She could see how much that pained Blue to even say; it was written all over the sudden tension in her shoulders and the set of her jaw, “No, I’ll be alright, Nick’s helping me look into everything and we practically turned this place into a fortress. You shouldn’t miss your chance to go find Kellogg, Blue.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue hesitated, “I- fine. ”</p><p> </p><p>She went off to start packing, leaving Piper to stand there. She watched Blue flit around the room, grabbing rations from the kitchen and bullets from one of the lockers. The idea that she would be gone for a couple weeks on a mission to hunt down the likes of Kellogg was both extremely daunting and mildly relieving. There would be an absence of that tension they carried between the two of them, but the <em> fear </em> would stick around. The fear of Blue dying, the fear of dying herself. Something about having Blue there made her feel slightly safer in the face of everything; more than any bars or reinforced doors could. But that would be selfish of her to keep her around like that. </p><p> </p><p>She felt a cold, wet nose nudge against her hand, pulling her out of her mind. Dogmeat was looking up at her with his big brown eyes, practically begging her to pet him. </p><p> </p><p>“Hey boy,” She bent down, holding his face in her hands before she ran her hand through the fur on the back of his neck, bringing her hand up again to scratch behind one of his ears, “You’re gonna help Blue, huh? Promise you’ll keep her safe for me?”</p><p> </p><p>Dogmeat whined in response, she could swear that he was agreeing with her. </p><p> </p><p>She heard Blue pause, could feel her eyes on the back of her head as she continued petting Dogmeat. She rarely saw dogs like him; ones that still had a full, healthy coat of fur. It was so <em> soft </em>, “Alright, I’m trusting you.”</p><p> </p><p>She heard Blue’s quiet laugh from behind her, “You’re a dork.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper looked back at her, feigning indignance, “Can’t you see I’m having a conversation here?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue was smiling at her, her tone teasing, “My bad. Didn’t mean to interrupt you two.”</p><p> </p><p>Dogmeat whined and pawed at Piper’s arm, demanding to be pet again. Piper huffed at Blue as she brought her hand up again and scratched behind his ear, “You’re just jealous that he likes me so much.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not exactly,” Blue laughed and then paused, “If anything, I’m jealous of him.”</p><p> </p><p><em> Well, </em> Piper didn’t really know how to take that. She pretended she didn’t take that the way that her heart did, but she knew her face was betraying her, she could practically feel her blush creeping up her cheeks. Blue seemed to realize that what she said could be taken a <em> lot </em> of ways, her eyes widening. The cogs were turning so fast behind those eyes that Blue was practically producing smoke out her ears as she desperately scrambled for words to explain what she meant.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean- I’m jealous that he’s getting all the attention.” <em> Well that isn’t much better. </em>Blue’s face was turning red around the edges, her eyes not meeting hers anymore, “Not that I blame you, dogs are much better friends than humans are.”</p><p> </p><p><em>Friends. </em><b><em>Friends.</em></b> “Y-yeah, for sure.”</p><p> </p><p>The silence stretched on for a few moments as Piper continued petting Dogmeat, pointedly <em> not </em> looking at Blue. She had always been shit at hiding her emotions and she absolutely didn’t need to deal with <em> that </em>particular mess right then. Blue didn’t move from where she had stopped in the living room, her hands fiddling with the sleeve of her leather jacket. </p><p> </p><p>“What did those two make you do that got you so roughed up?” Piper asked abruptly, silently cursing herself for making this so awkward. </p><p> </p><p>“What?- Oh,” Blue reached up and touched the bruise that was slowly purpling on her cheekbone, “Well, I got into a fight. Vadim had me help him kick out some particularly rowdy customers and one of them got in a good hit before I managed to get them out the door.”</p><p> </p><p>“And how the hell did you get covered in that much blood from <em> that </em>?” </p><p> </p><p>Blue laughed shortly, looking down at her hands, “I punched back harder. Broke his nose and a few of his friends joined in on the brawl. Someone pulled a knife but he ended up stabbing one of the other guys, it was a mess. ” </p><p> </p><p>“<em> Jeez </em>Blue.” Piper shook her head, “You’ll be a Commonwealth native in no time.”</p><p> </p><p>“Violence doesn’t feel <em> good, </em>you know.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh believe me, I know.” Piper paused, “Did you happen to see a scavver while you were there? He had black hair and was wearing a orange jacket with a big backpack.”</p><p> </p><p>Blue nodded after a moment of thought, “He was at the bar, kept to himself. Why?” </p><p> </p><p>“Oh- good.” Well, Piper had confirmation he was there, at least. If she told Blue what she was up to, though, she would definitely refuse to leave, “I wanted to interview him.”</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes narrowed slightly, “Right. Well, be careful.” </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘I know you’re not telling me everything,’  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve done this before, Blue,” Piper dropped her hand from Dogmeat’s head, standing back up, “I’m not heading over to look for him tonight, don’t worry.” </p><p> </p><p>Blue nodded slowly, her gaze lingering for a moment before she turned and went off to retrieve yet another thing for her journey. </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-----------------</span>
</p><p> </p><p>Blue was packed up and ready to go within the hour, that patched up and bloodied leather jacket thrown over her equally patched up vaultsuit. Her hair was a mess, half-over her face, her mouth pressed down into a slight frown. Her backpack was half-hanging off her shoulder, empty of all the junk she usually kept in it and instead full of provisions.</p><p> </p><p>Blue sighed, looking off to the side. She shuffled her feet, “So.”</p><p> </p><p>The silence stretched on until it was almost unbearable,“This is goodbye?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be back, Piper, I promise.” It was like Blue was reading her mind, a small smile pulling at the corner of her mouth even as her eyes darted down to the floor, “Stay safe, alright?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper snorted, dubiety heavy in her voice as she responded, “Aren’t I the one supposed to be telling <em> you </em>that?” </p><p> </p><p>Blue finally looked up at her, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she shook her head, “Well, yeah, but neither of us are exactly… low risk.”</p><p> </p><p>“You can say that again.” Piper breathed out, her voice softening, “Good luck. Don’t you go dying on me, alright?”</p><p> </p><p>Blue turned and stepped towards the door, Dogmeat following close behind. She opened it and paused, her fingers tapping anxiously against the handle and her face a conflicting mess of emotions that Piper couldn’t even <em> begin </em> to untangle enough to read. </p><p> </p><p>“Blue?” That seemed to snap her out of whatever place she went to in her head, her eyes coming back up to meet her gaze. Something about the look on her face made Piper want to rush forward and hug her, reassure her that she’d be <em> fine </em> (even if she couldn’t know that) and she’d see her in a few weeks. She couldn’t seem to make her feet move, though. </p><p> </p><p>Blue hesitated for a second, her hand on the door. Her mouth set into a straight line, her eyebrows furrowing slightly, “I-” She suddenly looked a lot less composed, her grip tightening on the like she was trying to stop herself from moving involuntarily, “Stay safe, <em> please </em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Piper laughed uneasily, “I’ll be alright Blue, I swear.” </p><p> </p><p>She didn’t really mean it, she knew that, Blue knew that she knew that. She was going to publish that article eventually, go after McDonough and his corrupt guards. Plus, she had never really been able to guarantee her safety in her line of work anyway. She couldn’t reveal how uneasy she felt right then, couldn’t bring herself to <em> tell </em> Blue the what’s and why’s of her fears, of the objectively <em> stupid </em> things she was going to do in hopes of some kind of justice. </p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t tell her that she saw that scavver talking to a guard about her this morning, the paranoia that he was somehow spying on her. Couldn’t tell her that that was the real reason she was going over to the Dugout Inn first thing in the morning; to confront him. She couldn’t share that uneasy feeling that stuck to her, waiting for the other shoe to drop and everything to go horribly wrong. </p><p> </p><p>And, well, she tried to reassure herself, she’d been in this place before. She knew she’d make it through alright, no matter what happened. At least, that’s what she had to believe if she wanted to keep being able to move forward with this vague plan she had. </p><p> </p><p>Blue hesitated for a few moments more, clearly not believing her, her grip tightening on the door to the point that her knuckles turned white. She seemed to make up her mind about something, her grip finally loosening and her hand falling back to her side, “I’ll see you in a few weeks, alright?”</p><p> </p><p>Piper nodded, her heart in her throat as her feet still refused to move. Blue was gone before she could say or do anything else, Dogmeat’s tail disappearing as the door swung shut behind her. </p><p> </p><p>She <em> really </em> regretted not getting that hug. </p><p> </p><p>Piper let out a long breath, taking her hat off the run her hand through her hair. She couldn’t keep living like this; all cooped up in her house and too afraid to even breath wrong in her own city. Now that Blue was out doing her own thing, she had slightly more breathing room in the risks she was willing to take. She needed to be out there, in the thick of it, exposing the corrupt underbelly of this city and telling people the <em> truth </em>. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Fuck it, I’m not letting McDonough and his thugs intimidate me into not going after them and telling people the truth. I’m coming after you, you bastard. And I’m not gonna quit until you’re gone. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Consequences be damned.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>END OF PART 1</p><p>To clarify, every "part" in this story will remain in this one work, so this is definitely nowhere near the end of me updating. I'm taking a little break in writing to handle some personal stuff, but I will be back in March with chapter 16. </p><p>Thank you all who have read, left kudos, and commented so far!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW: descriptive violence</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Consequences have a funny way of finding people. Whether good or bad, just or cruel; actions always had a reaction. And whether it be the rare times the guilty faced the facts of their own actions, or the innocent paying in blood for what the guilty did... that reaction came. She knew this when she became a lawyer, wholeheartedly believed in the cause of bringing people to justice and protecting the innocent in a world hell-bent against holding the guilty accountable. </p><p> </p><p> It had felt like trying to fight a forest fire with a bucket.</p><p> </p><p>Today wasn’t like that for her; there were no long hours spent in the confines of her office going over court cases. She wasn’t prepping paper to stand in front of an unsympathetic judge in a stuffy courtroom. There was no fear in her heart that a murderer would walk free while she watched another innocent person thrown in prison for thinking the wrong way and saying too much. No, no murderers would be walking free today. </p><p> </p><p>Because today was different. </p><p> </p><p>Consequences came to the guilty, by her own two hands. </p><p> </p><p>Her own two bloody hands…</p><p> </p><p>She had killed people before, shot them from behind corners with shaking hands and bile in her throat. She had watched men die gruesomely in this brave new world she had found herself thrown into. But this was personal, this was a roar in her head that didn’t stop even after she had pushed a knife between his ribs with a force that sent him falling to the ground, gasping and coughing around the sudden presence of blood in his lungs. She watched him die closer than she had ever had the horror of seeing someone die before, twisted the knife in until his body fell limp and silent. </p><p> </p><p>And now she felt nothing. No joy. No disgust. Just a blank, empty, all-consuming <em>nothing</em> as she pushed up from the floor and stumbled away from him and over to a chair. She collapsed into it, Kellogg’s lifeless body barely ten feet away and his cold, dead eyes looking back at her with that surprised look still plastered across his face. It was like he didn’t expect her to be so brutal and efficient with it. To be honest, she didn’t really expect it either.</p><p> </p><p>And then it wasn’t nothing anymore. It was this deep, painful horror washing over her as it hit her; how inhuman she felt in that moment, how aggressive she had been in the face of a situation Kellogg had clearly wanted to talk out. She wasn’t defending herself or saving anyone when she lunged at him. She killed him because she wanted to, because some sick part of her wanted nothing more than to watch him die as painfully as she could make him.</p><p> </p><p>No, it didn’t feel like justice anymore; it felt like cruelty.</p><p> </p><p><em>“Don’t sell yourself short, Hon. You’re the best person I know.” </em>was something Nate said to her, one time on a car ride late at night when she was six months pregnant with Shaun, <em>“I bet he’s gonna look at you with awe his whole life, just like I do.”</em></p><p> </p><p>It was a response to a self-deprecating joke she had made, <em>“Well, knowing how my mother was, he’ll hate me by ten.”</em></p><p> </p><p>But her mother never did… <em>that.</em> She never took a knife and stabbed it through a man’s chest and twisted just to make sure she felt him die. She wasn’t a murderer. </p><p> </p><p>She caught her reflection in a computer screen right then: her face had blood splattered across one cheek. She didn’t recognize herself for a second, sickness gripping her stomach as her hands started to shake. </p><p> </p><p>“Is- is this who I am now?” She said it more like a statement than a question, her voice foreign and raspy. </p><p> </p><p>Nobody would have answered anyway, not when her only company was a corpse. </p><p> </p><p><em>“Violence doesn’t feel good, you know.” </em>She remembered Piper’s face when she said that, the way the corner of her mouth tilted downwards for a moment as her eyes drifted off to the corner of the room. Like she knew that kind of guilt; the kind that only came with the hurt and death one caused just to survive another day in this new, brutal reality. </p><p> </p><p><em>“Oh believe me, I know.” </em>She had said it flippantly, probably meant it flippantly too. Piper grew up in it, after all. So why would violence ever be more than a passing inconvenience to her? It was a simple fact of survival, was it not? But Piper always seemed above it all, in some way; someone who wasn’t violent by nature and didn’t enjoy hurting others that didn’t deserve it. She fought and killed because she had to if she wanted to make it home and provide for Nat. It wasn’t out of pleasure, she never saw her show visible <em>joy</em> at the prospect of having to kill anyone, not even the vilest raider. </p><p> </p><p>Blue really wondered if Piper would ever be able to just brush what she did off, if she knew. Piper had already seemed uncomfortable with her after that one time she let her temper work faster than her judgement. She couldn’t imagine that she’d look at her at all anymore knowing that she killed someone and relished in it, drew it out longer than it had to be just to make sure that he felt the same pain she did when he killed Nate and kidnapped her son. </p><p> </p><p>She was a tool of consequence for a moment, a bright blinding fire of justified rage. But looking at Kellogg now, all she could feel was shame. This was the ugly, brutal violence she was capable of; something that had been rotting inside her soul since the moment that Nate died. </p><p> </p><p>Would Nate really say those words now, if he saw what she did? Would Piper ever be able to look at her again if she knew? </p><p> </p><p>...Would Shaun really look at her in awe?</p><p> </p><p><em>“He’s alive, by the way.” </em>That’s what Kellogg said a few seconds before she lunged at him. It wasn’t happy news to her, it was earth-shattering and damning as she sat there and finally took in what those words <em>meant</em>. </p><p> </p><p>Her poor baby boy… She was already so exhausted, strung out from the emotional toll of everything and this just felt like another way for the universe to pull the rug out from under her right as she was learning how to stand on her own again. But she was going to get to him, one way or another. Hell would have to freeze over for her to give up now that she knew Shaun was still out there and alive. </p><p> </p><p>But she was really starting to doubt if <em>she </em>should be the one to raise him at all. But she couldn’t just leave him there, with those same people that had destroyed her family and countless others. Either way, she made no promises on the kind of mother she would be to him, nor the world he would now be forced to grow up in once they were reunited</p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>She tried to collect herself for a moment, tried to summon the courage to do what she had to do now that Kellogg was dead. She knew she had to search the room and his body for any clues to where the Institute might be and how to get there. And she wasn’t going to leave his body there to rot away like the skeletons in the corners of the room, no matter how horrible of a person he had been and how much she had wanted to make him suffer in the end. She stood up from the chair, wiping her hands on her jumpsuit to try and get some of the blood off.</p><p> </p><p><em>This isn’t for you, you bastard. </em>She thought half-heartedly as she pulled the knife from his chest, wiping it on her leg before sheathing it, <em>this is for me.</em></p><p> </p><p>But she couldn’t bring herself to have the vitriol she had felt when she walked in to face him. For every fiber of her being that was screaming that she did the right thing, there was another part of her that just felt disgusted. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I can’t be this person again.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Everything felt like it was going <em>just </em>wrong enough that Piper swore the universe was fucking with her in some way.</p><p> </p><p>The day after Blue left, she tried to hunt down that scavver, but found that he was long gone. A minor setback, but not the end of the world. She could always try to hunt him down later. The end of the week was punctuated by her publishing the article that was either going to get her killed or get McDonough finally jailed. It did neither.</p><p> </p><p>In fact, McDonough was very much still the mayor and very apparently ignoring her and her paper these days. She tried to hunt him down for an interview a few times, but every attempt was met with utter indifference, as if she didn’t even exist to him. It got to her so bad one time that she stood there and yelled at him for almost half of the way through his haircut before Diamond City Security came in and removed her from the premises for “being a public nuisance.” </p><p> </p><p>Well, at least they didn’t arrest her this time. </p><p> </p><p>Public outcry did eventually come, though... for the captain of the guard to step down. After about a week of disgruntled citizens filing in and out of the City Council offices, Captain Randall was officially fired. Apparently Piper’s story wasn’t the only one like it, and people were all too happy to pin the blame on him without looking any further up the chain. And that seemed to be the end of it. It wasn’t McDonough, but at least part of the problem was gone. </p><p> </p><p>It was frustrating every time she saw McDonough walk around free, and it didn’t help her sleep better at night by much, but she did notice that Diamond City security was a lot more hesitant to be outright aggressive towards her anymore. And for that, she was thankful. For all the times that trying to inform the city about corruption and other issues had felt like shouting into the void, at least every now and then her paper seemed to have some sort of impact. </p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>It was around week three of Blue being gone that she started to get her first few pangs of worry about her. The house felt empty without her, and with every day that passed, it seemed to feel just a little bit emptier. In fact, the distance seemed to do the exact opposite of what she wanted it to do, as every day was filled with constant reminders of just how much she missed her. It was that empty couch she saw every time she went downstairs, the sheer silence of the house without her constant tinkering and cleaning whenever she got too antsy. It was a space in her bed that had felt empty since before Blue had even left...</p><p> </p><p> Piper was in dire need of a distraction to get her mind off of it all.  </p><p> </p><p>Piper tried to get that distraction from people first, too hesitant to leave the city <em>just-in-case</em>. But Nat was in and out all the time; these days she seemed more keen on talking to her friends than hanging out with Piper for any substantial amount of time. Nick was out working on a case most days that he didn’t seem to really want to go into detail about. Danny was… well, he was Danny. And if she kept going to the Dugout Inn to spend time talking to Vadim and Yefim, she was definitely going to develop a drinking problem. </p><p> </p><p>So Piper sat at home and wrote for a while, until her need to get out of her own head overtook her need to wait around in the city and drove her back out into the ruins of Boston for the next story. </p><p> </p><p>Being able to come and go when she pleased was a welcome change. There were no more guards standing ready to throw her out of the city, no hesitation by whoever was on gate duty to just open it and let her in. She wandered around Boston during the daytime, coming home at night to write about the various raider gangs she had come across and the growing threat of the super mutants that were starting to take up positions outside of the walls of the city. She even wandered into Goodneighbor a few times, trying to sniff out some good leads on the activities of the various Triggermen gangs in the area (and a certain scavver, too). Eventually, though, she found that it was more profitable for her journalism to stay closer to home. </p><p> </p><p>See, McDonough had been acting more and more erratic over the weeks since the paper was published. He would disappear from the public eye for long stretches of time, and became short-tempered where he was usually at least a little patient (Outside of his staunch refusal to even acknowledge her existence). Even if he didn’t have anything to do with the break in, he sure was acting suspicious. And Piper wasn’t going to be able to sleep well until she figured out just what he was getting up to around Diamond City these days. </p><p> </p><p>She eventually got an in into his office sometime around late February; a young intern she was paying (<em>not</em> bribing) to slip her any interesting information that the teenager managed to find out. None of the info really did her any good for a while. It was mostly just a few bits of office drama that weren’t exactly news-worthy and didn’t prove anything about McDonough’s involvement in anything less than upstanding of a mayor. But one day in March, when she was really starting to wonder just where the <em>hell </em>Blue was (And was honestly considering going after her), she finally got a lead on McDonough.</p><p> </p><p>It was a crumpled up piece of paper that the intern had slipped out of the trash in the mayor’s private office when he stepped out of the room. </p><p> </p><p>The Wall- 3AM</p><p>Bring documentation.</p><p>Burn this now. </p><p> </p><p><em>Well</em>, she thought as she went over the note at her desk that evening, <em>You’re either the biggest idiot on this side of Boston, or you’re setting me up.</em> <em>Let’s see which is which, McDonough.</em> </p><p> </p><p>It came slowly, but eventually the clock above her desk showed 2:40am and she got ready to head out. She left her red jacket at home, opting for a dark blue one from her downstairs closet instead. The harder to spot she was, the better, even if it was a little hard to leave her dad’s jacket behind. </p><p> </p><p>Mist was heavy in the air when she snuck out the front door of her house. It wasn’t as cold as it usually was this time of year, but the humidity made it feel a great deal colder than it actually was. It stung her face as she slunk her way down the side street from her house that went behind the market. She decided to take a slight detour rather than heading straight to the Wall, breaking off into an alley that connected to the area where the radio station was located. The fields were off to her right, a shanty town to her left as she stopped a few feet away from the radio station, peering into the hazy night to try and make out any figures near the (surprisingly well-lit) Wall. </p><p> </p><p>Nobody seemed to be there, but she doubted it was 3:00 yet. She took that opportunity to head out into the mutfruit fields a ways, crouching low to the ground to avoid rustling any leaves as she snuck closer to the Wall. When she was about ten yards from where she wanted to be, she spotted a figure coming out of the darkness and into the misty light. Portly and stiff, with the vague shape of a hat upon his head; that was McDonough alright. </p><p> </p><p>She snuck a bit closer, getting right up to the edge of the fields so she could see him more clearly. He was looking around nervously with those beady little eyes, his face covered in a sheen that looked to be more sweat than humidity. He was clutching a roll of papers tightly in his right hand, a slight tremor in his grip. <em>So you’re scared, huh? Interesting.</em> She should’ve brought her notebook with her, or, hell, even her camera. But she didn’t really know how it worked outside of the basic <em>point and click</em>. It seemed to require a flash to develop anything, anyway, so maybe it was best that she didn’t happen to have it with her right then. </p><p> </p><p>Minutes passed, and nobody else appeared. McDonough seemed to get antsier with each passing moment, jumping at the sound of a Brahmin mooing in the distance. He was muttering to himself at one point, but it wasn’t loud enough for her to hear unless she got closer and risked him seeing her. After a bit of time, Piper would have to guess maybe twenty minutes, McDonough seemed to freeze up. His eyes were wild as he looked frantically around before running off in the opposite direction of where she was. </p><p> </p><p>Piper cursed silently, something had clearly spooked him and she wasn’t completely sure it wasn’t <em>her</em>. There was no way she’d be able to follow after him now without having to step into the light and blow her (possibly compromised) cover. Well, she could take the long way around, but there was a good chance she’d lose track of him completely. She had to think fast, though, because McDonough was already almost completely out of sight. </p><p> </p><p>Self-preservation won out in the split second she had to decide, and she slunk back into the fields, taking the way that she came with an almost-run. She still tried to stay out of any light sources and away from any security patrols, and it slowed her down more than she would have liked. And by the time she got to the place where she had seen him last, it already seemed to be too late. He was long gone and she didn’t have any luck spotting him again as she walked a big loop around the area. She decided, reluctantly, to cut her losses there and turned around to head home before she got herself killed or arrested. </p><p> </p><p>She took extra caution to stick to the back alleys on the way back, moving slowly to make sure she didn’t accidentally run into anyone or anything that could either arrest her or do her harm. She was angry with herself for losing him, but she was still buzzing with adrenaline at the idea that maybe, <em>just maybe</em> she found a shred of evidence of something bigger going on. It was extremely suspicious and worrying that he had even been slinking out there at that time in the first place. Not to mention the fact that he appeared to be holding sensitive government documents with him while he waited to meet with… someone. </p><p> </p><p>Now she just had to figure out who, exactly, that was.</p><p> </p><p>It hit her how late it was when she finally got upstairs and into her room, the clock on the wall showing 3:45am. She yawned and rubbed her eye with one hand while taking off her hat with the other. Next came the jacket, her boots, and her outermost layer of pants. She crawled into bed without bothering to take off anything else, falling asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.</p><p> </p><p>------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Piper was ripped out of sleep after what barely felt like a second, sitting straight up from her bed and looking around in the darkness frantically. It took her a second to register what woke her, but when she heard the second gunshot go off, followed by a loud, metallic bang, she felt her stomach drop. She jumped up from the bed, pulling her pistol out from under her pillow and running down the stairs without bothering to throw her jacket or boots back on. </p><p> </p><p>She threw the front door open with enough force that it banged against the wall as she ran out into the street with her gun at the ready.  It was still dark, too dark to really see much in any of the unlit corners in the street, but she strained her eyes to try and see anyway. The sky far above the city was a dull grey color, a clear sign of morning that wasn’t coming fast enough to help her right then. She saw some doors open while she stood there and surveyed the street, interior lights making it just a <em>little </em>easier to see by, but she still couldn’t see anything that suggested a shootout. And she didn’t know what that bang was. </p><p> </p><p>It was silent for a moment, the kind of silent that felt more wrong than anything ever could. Then there was a noise, a groan of pain loud enough that it sent the hairs on her neck standing on end. She lifted her gun up a bit, cocking back the hammer as she squinted her eyes in the direction of the stairs that marked the entrance of the city. It fell silent again for a moment before she heard the sound of someone dragging something. </p><p> </p><p>“H-help...” It sounded like he was trying to yell, but it came out as barely louder than a whisper. It sounded strangled and all too familiar.</p><p> </p><p>Piper ran forward, into the darkness, her eyes adjusting until she could make out the slumped form of a man as he barely held himself up on the fencing that lined the way to the City Council elevator, “Danny?” </p><p> </p><p>“I-I can’t-” His grip slipped and he collapsed before she could run forward to catch him. </p><p> </p><p> “Danny!”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm thinking about including more POV time from Blue going forward, but we shall see.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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